The Supreme Court has had a significant impact in framing the terms of debate on key public questions recently. It is not unlikely that but for the forceful intervention of the nation’s highest court, issues relating to corruption in high places may have moved only very slowly. The political executive’s timidity in such matters has been all too glaring, and for several years now. In many recent instances — such as the 2G affair and the related Radia tapes — governmental lethargy has permitted the judiciary to make firm institutional interventions.

The public have been heartened by the higher judiciary’s boldness, and may well come to regard this as natural — given the slow government response — in dealing with complex matters of governance. Other than corruption, one other issue which has caught the people’s imagination of late is acquisition of agricultural land by the state to be transferred to private parties for commercial and industrial purposes. It has led to violence in some states, excited the imagination of political parties and ignited a wide debate on the methods used to obtain land for non-agricultural purposes.
It is to be hoped that the probing questions put by a Supreme Court bench on Monday to both the Centre and the Uttar Pradesh government will galvanise our political system into action. As the Supreme Court noted, the anachronistic 1894 Land Acquisition Act, enacted during the British Raj, is at the root of much of our current problems regarding land acquisition. And while the UPA-2 government has promised to bring in a new law to replace it in the coming Monsoon Session of Parliament, now just weeks away, we have no inkling of what the government’s thinking is. A public debate on such a vital issue is absolutely essential, and will only enrich and improve the proposed legislation.
In its observations on Monday while hearing petitions filed by the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority and some real estate groups, the Supreme Court came down hard on the routine practice of state governments to purchase from farmers land on which food is grown to transfer it to non-farm interests. The two-judge bench insisted that the terms of trade were steeply skewed against agriculturists in such cases. The bench was also annoyed that villagers in Greater Noida were not even allowed to record objections as the state government used the so-called “urgency” clause in the 1894 Act. The court held the Centre responsible for this state of affairs as it had permitted an antiquated law to remain on the statute book. It also pointedly noted that it is barren land that should be acquired for industrial or commercial activity. While valid in principle, such an inventory is difficult to make until all land — along with the names of title-holders — is duly mapped and stored electronically. Another consideration must be addressed: what when all the barren land in a state is exhausted?
The Supreme Court, as it itself acknowledged, has been influenced by the Singur syndrome in West Bengal, where the mobilisation of farmers unwilling to part with their land led to the Tatas cancelling plans to set up the Nano plant there. Interestingly, on a petition by the Tatas to restrain the Mamata Banerjee government from returning those lands to farmers (as these now belonged to the Tatas), the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the state government not to proceed further with the return of land till the matter is sorted out in the Calcutta high court. The outcome of this case will be watched with keen interest across the country. Will the Supreme Court be able to square its observations in the Greater Noida matter with what eventually transpires in the Singur case?