Land acquisition: India

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SC: Lengthy land acquisition process breeds corruption

From the archives of The Times of India 2007, 2009

Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN

New Delhi: The woefully long land acquisition process, often marred by arbitrary exclusion and deletion of areas, breeds touts, middlemen and corruption, the Supreme Court has said and asked the government — “Can a large number of citizens be not spared of this traumatic experience?”

The case in hand was Bangalore Development Authority’s controversial ‘Arkavarthi Town or Layout’ in which a former CM and now a cabinet minister in the UPA was spared the blushes by the division bench of the High Court. The division bench had not only upheld the Layout scheme, but also expunged stinging remarks against the politician by the single-judge bench, which had set aside the land acquisition proceedings.

Though the apex court upheld the scheme after giving it a tweak here and there and providing better compensation, a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and D K Jain did find evidence that there were degrees of arbitrariness in acquisition. It said the manner in which the village lands were included and then deleted from the notification waxed the view that there was no proper survey or application of mind while formulating the Arkavarthy development scheme.

“If large areas are notified and then large extents are to be deleted, it breeds corruption and nepotism among officials,” said the Bench, adding it also created hostility, mutual distrust and disharmony among the villagers, dividing them on the lines of ‘those who can influence and get their lands deleted’ and ‘those who cannot’. “Touts and middlemen flaunting political connections flourish, extracting money for getting lands deleted from acquisition notification. Why subject a large number of citizens to such traumatic experience? Why not plan properly before embarking upon acquisition process,” asked Justice Raveendran, who authored the judgment for the bench.