YEIDA land acquisition not as per law: High Court

ALLAHABAD: The Allahabad high court on Thursday declared the land acquisition proceedings initiated by the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority in Niloli Sahpur village of Gautam Budh Nagar as “bad and not done in accordance with law”.

However, the court directed that if YEIDA officials wanted to retain the said land, they must pay at the present market rate to the land owners and also provide them all the benefits of the land under the new Land Acquisition Act 2013, which came into force on January 1, 2014.

Allowing a writ petition filed by one Harpal Singh, a division bench comprising Justice Arun Tandon and Justice Sangeeta Chandra observed, “No reasoning and satisfaction was recorded by the state government for the invitation of urgency clause for acquiring the said land and they relied only on the report of the authorities concerned.”

Under the urgency clause, the opportunity of hearing provided to the land owners before acquisition of land is dispensed with.

Counsel for the petitioner, Pankaj Dubey, challenged the acquisition, saying that as the plan was for residential purpose, the urgency clause cannot be invoked.

YEIDA had acquired 347 hectares of land for ‘residential plot scheme-2009’ at the village. The petitioner had challenged it before the court, saying that he was not given an opportunity of hearing before the acquisition of his land as provided under the Land Acquisition Act.