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Nand Kishore Gupta & Ors. vs State Of U.P.& Ors.

Country/Territory
India
Type of court
National - higher court
Date
Sep 8, 2010
Source
UNEP, InforMEA
Court name
Supreme Court of India
Seat of court
New Delhi
Judge
Sirpurkar, V.
Joseph, C.
Language
English
Subject
Land & soil
Keyword
Land tenure Foreign land tenure Land-use planning
Abstract
The 16—km six-lane Yamuna Expressway that starts from Noida will terminate at Agra, passing through Aligarh and Mathura. It will bring the travel time between New Delhi and Agra down to 90 minutes. The Allahabad High Court, dismissing petitions of 35 farmers whose lands were being acquired for the project, upheld the state government policy for acquiring land for the mega project. The farmers had contended that since the project would be executed by a private agency, the acquisition of land should also be done by the private company which was implementing the project. The Uttar Pradesh government had told the court that the project was being executed by a private company but it the expressway was for the convenience for the general public. The Allahabad HC had dismissed writ petitions filed by landowners challenging the notification under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 relating to Yamuna Expressway project. The petitioner had sought a direction to restrain the state government from giving effect to the notifications and, further, not to dispossess the landholders/petitioners after demolishing their constructions on the land which was proposed to be acquired. Out of 12,282 landowners, 11,397 had already received compensation under the agreement and the challenge related only to 21.03 hectares out of 1,604 hectares. The HC had also taken the view that the scales of justice must tilt towards the right to development of the millions who would benefit from the road and the development of the area, as against the human rights of 35 petitioners, whose main complaint was that they were not heard before the declaration under Section 6 of the Act. The HC had also declined to give any direction to the state government to consider exempting 21.03 hectares relating to the 35 petitioners. The court also rejected the petitioners' contention that the state government had erred in invoking the urgency clause to dispense with the public hearing for acquisition of land for the project. The court also did not accept the petitioners' contention that the entire acquisition of land was for private purpose and no public interest was involved in it. The apex court repeatedly referred to the Allahabad High Court verdict saying invoking of the urgency clause for acquiring lands was a must in the wake of loss of time that had already taken place. The court said that otherwise the entire project would lose its efficacy, considering the various reasons like enormousness of the project, likelihood of encroachments, number of appellants who would have required to be heard and the time taken for that purpose, and the fact that the project had lingered already from 2001 till 2008. On the question whether the Expressway project was in public interest, the judgment said: "There can be no dispute that this road would add to the betterment of the citizens of the East Yamuna area in particular and Uttar Pradesh in general." Addressing the question that the acquisition of land was an exercise of power, the judgment said: "We must say that there was full transparency in the whole process, and the whole process was checked, re-checked and re-rechecked, leaving no scope to infer any bias in favour of the company.
Full text
COU-156156.pdf
Website
indiankanoon.org