Land acquisition for SEZs: SC seeks reply from Centre,7 states

NEW DELHI: A plea seeking return of unused land acquired for setting up of special economic zones to farmers and a court-monitored CBI probe into alleged flouting of SEZ rules by beneficiary corporates, today led the Supreme Court to seek responses from the Centre and seven states.

A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justices D Y Chandrachud and L Nageswara Rao issued notice to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Punjab, on the PIL which alleged that almost 80 per cent of the land acquired for the SEZs were lying unused.

The plea alleged that in last five years alone, 4,842.38 hectares of land was acquired for various SEZs and only 362 hectares were utilised, leaving around 4,480 hectares unused.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves and lawyer Sravan Kumar, appearing for NGO 'SEZ Farmers Protection, Welfare Association', referred to a CAG report of 2012-13 and said not only have the farmers been deprived of their land, but also consequential benefits like employment generation and industrialisation of the acquired areas have not taken place.

Some companies, for whose SEZs the plots of land were acquired, raised loans by mortgaging the land documents as collateral securities with banks, but strangely did not use the loan money to develop these SEZs, the PIL said.

"Issue writ...or direction directing investigation under the supervision of this court by the Central Bureau of Investigation on violations, diversion of loan money obtained by SEZ holders against the SEZ rules," it said.

The NGO also sought intiation of civil and criminal proceedings against the holders of land, meant for SEZs, for "not performing the obligatory duty under the contract resulting to unemployment, wastage of natural resources, causing loss to food security".

Besides returning "vacant, unused land to farmers", the plea also sought declaring of the land acquisition as "unconstitutional", being violative of fundamental right to life and equality on the ground that they have caused "joblessness to the farmers, agricultural labour".

The plea has sought a direction to the Centre and the states to conduct "comprehensive social impact study" on the affected farmers and their dependents on account of land acquisition for SEZs.