Land acquisition: urgency claim viewed with scepticism

The right to property is a constitutional right and the government cannot deprive a person of land in an arbitrary manner. Recently, the justifiability of using the urgency provisions in the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, contained in sections 17(1) and 17(4), arose before the Supreme Court in Sri Radhey Shyam (Dead) through LRs and Ors v State of UP and Ors.

The facts

The Greater NOIDA Industrial Development Authority issued a notification on 12 March 2008 about acquiring 205 hectares of land in Makora, a village in the district of Gautam Budh Nagar in Uttar Pradesh. It was issued under the Land Acquisition Act, i.e. section 4(1), which deals with publication of preliminary notification, read with section 17(1) and 17(4).

The appellants, whose land was included in the notification, unsuccessfully requested the authority to not acquire the land as they were living in a house built 30 to 35 years ago on it. Then, on 19 November 2008, the state government issued a notification declaring the land had been acquired. It was issued under section 6, which deals with land required for a public purpose, read with section 9, which deals with issuing a public notice to the interested persons.

Rohit Jaiswal is a partner and Siddharth Dubey is an associate at Singhania & Partners, which is a full-service national law practice. The firm has offices in New Delhi, Noida, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.