The Bombay High Court has asked Maharashtra government to look into the grievances of the project-affected people of Chasakman dam in Pune district who have claimed in a petition that they have not yet been given land in return for the area acquired from them two decades ago.
The order was given on October 28 by a bench of Justices V M Kanade and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi who asked the state government to consider giving land to the project-hit farmers on or before November 24, the next date of hearing (of the petition).
Sudamrao Shankarrao Pawar, a farmer, filed a petition alleging that for the last two decades all project-affected persons have not been allotted land by the state government despite several representations made by them from time to time.
His lawyer Sanjeev Sawant alleged that instead of allotting land to project-affected persons, land has been given to the persons who are not eligible to get land since their land was never acquired.
"We hope and trust that the (state) government will look into the grievances of the petitioner and project-affected persons and will take decision before the next date", i.E November 24", said the Judges.
The court was informed that the petitioner has given to the government whatever information was available with the project-hit people.
Nitin Deshpande, government pleader, submitted that the information which is given is still incomplete. He submitted that an inquiry would be held soon.
The HC expressed surprise over such adversarial stand taken by the government against the project-affected persons who have lost their entire land on account of acquisition of their land for irrigation projects.
The court noted that the Land Acquisition Act contemplates that after the land of project-affected persons is acquired, part of land from the benefited zone would have to be allotted to them.
This has not been done in this project, the judges said.
