HC scraps another land acquisition in Gr Noida

The Allahabad High Court set aside the acquisition of 170 hectares of land in Gulistanpur village by the Greater Noida Authority in Gautam Budh Nagar district.

The Allahabad High Court on Monday set aside the acquisition of 170 hectares of land in Gulistanpur village by the Greater Noida Authority in Gautam Budh Nagar district. The HC had earlier set aside two major land acquisitions in the same district. Acquisition of more than 200 hectares of land had been earlier cancelled by the Supreme Court.

The order,passed by a division bench comprising Justices Sunil Ambwani and K N Pandey,set aside the acquisition while hearing petitions filed by 100 farmers in the village. The court was hearing 58 petitions from the farmers.

The Greater Noida Authority had acquired the land in the village located in Dadri tehsil in 2007-08 for planned industrial development. However,the farmers alleged that the state was not going ahead with any industrial development in the area and that the state had misused its power to acquire the land.

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Earlier,the HC had annulled the acquisition of 157 hectares of land in Shahberi village on May 15. A day later,it annulled the acquisition of 72 hectares of land in Surajpur village. Earlier,in April,the SC had annulled the land acquisition of 205 hectares in Makora village. All these cases were reported from the Greater Noida area.

In the previous cases,the state had invoked the urgency clause,which entailed dispensing with the right of the citizens to be heard on the matter of acquisition. The court had pointed out that it was against the principles of natural justice.

According to P C Gupta,DCEO,Greater Noida Authority,the land has been acquired but further allocation has been put on hold. We have not allocated the acquired land in Gulistanpur to anyone. The layout plan of the acquired land is yet to get final approval. We will chalk out the details of the land acquired and compensation distributed among farmers soon, stated Gupta. Nanak Chand,one of the framers who went to court against the land acquisition,said that the authority has put the land under usage of recreational greens. We have not taken the compensation from the authority. Farmers had been given compensation at the rate of Rs 850 per sq mt. All those who went to court have not taken compensation. We want our land back, he said.

With inputs from Delhi