Settle price before land acquisition: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday suggested the government negotiate compensation with farmers before acquiring land for development purposes because paying a “pittance” causes heart burn.

The court told additional solicitor general P P Malhotra to “advise the government to set up a panel to negotiate and fix a settled price for land because at a time when land prices are increasin, the government cannot pay a pittance.”
Governments have been compulsorily acquiring land by resorting to ‘public purpose’ clause, leaving the farmers and land owners to either litigate or protest, sometimes violently as happened in Singur, West Bengal, and Bhatta-Parsaul, Uttar Pradesh.

A vacation bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and C K Prasad said: “In large number of cases, the anguish and dispute is over the compensation. If the governments would have formulated a reasonable compensation, then litigation could be avoided”.

“Instead of resorting to public purpose for acquiring land and prolonging litigation, the government can negotiate the compensation. We know, we’ve travelled beyond the legal arguments, but you need to think it over,” SC said.

The case in hand related to acquisition of 80 bighas of land in east Delhi’s Mandoli area opposite Loni Road for setting up of a 220 KV substation to meet the uninterrupted power supply for 2010 CWG. A proposal was initiated in 2005 and land was acquired after three years.

Senior advocate Dhruv Mehta said the urgency clause invoked by the government to dispense with adjudication of objections raised by his clients, who were the land owners, did not get any support from the official records which only indicated a delay of more than 3 years.