The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Court refuses to intervene in land acquisition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 07, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Court refuses to intervene in land acquisition

Special Correspondent

For NLC expansion project

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has declined to interfere with the acquisition of land by the Tamil Nadu Government for the second mine expansion scheme of the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC).

Dismissing writ petitions, a Division Bench comprising Justice P.D. Dinakaran and Justice P.P.S. Janarthana Raja said there was no lack of legislative competency or arbitrary exercise of power by the State Government.

The Government sought to acquire around 1,408 hectares of wet, dry and natham lands in 10 villages near Neyveli.

The plea

The aggrieved landowners submitted that the acquisition was repugnant to provisions of the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act 1957 and that it was bad for non-compliance of the mandatory procedure contemplated under the Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Industrial Purposes Rules.

The Government had failed to provide sufficient rehabilitation measures and safeguards to the landowners or interested persons as contemplated under the National Policy on Resettlement and Rehabilitation for Project-Affected Families 2003, they said.

Counter

In its counter, the Government contended that the impugned lands were not coal-bearing but only a lignite-bearing stretch. There was no need for notifying the intention of the Centre to acquire the lands.

In their order, the Judges said that in the absence of any specific definition for the word "coal" in the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, it would not be proper for the court to "construe that coal and lignite are one and the same. Therefore, we are convinced that there is no need to specifically refer the Coal Bearing Areas Act."

Sufficient safeguards

Stating that sufficient safeguards had been provided for under the Tamil Nadu Acquisition of land for Industrial Purposes Act to hear the expert witnesses for the determination of the amount payable to the affected persons, the Judges pointed out that the Government had given an undertaking that the package had been provided to give relief to the genuinely displaced landowners.

Concluding that the Act did not suffer from lack of any legislative competency or want of jurisdiction, the Judges said: "In pith and substance, the Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Industrial Purposes Act was enacted with a conceptualised vision that more industries would be started in Tamil Nadu, and the acquisition of lands for setting up such industries would be expedited to achieve the laudable object of big industrialisation. Such power of the State cannot be strangled on the ground of legislative competency."

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