The Supreme Court has come down heavily on the Central and state governments for the misuse of the archaic Land Acquisition Act in the past two decades of the opening of economy to acquire farmers’ land in name of development. The court sought to stop the trend to save precious agriculture
land for future food security and not force the farmers to the brink of suicides.
Imposing a fine of `2.5 lakhs on the Haryana government for rushing through the acquiring of 8.4 kanal land of Raghbir Singh Sehrawat in Sonepat district just to meet the formality of Land Acquisition Act, the apex court said authorities in their zeal were acquiring farm land with “scant regard” to the recommendations of National Commission on Farmers (NFC) that agriculture land must be saved for country’s food security and first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru’s philosophy of agrarian reforms.
“The state apparatus which has used the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 in last two decades for massive acquisition of the agriculture land in different parts of the country, has not only adversely impacted the farmers, but also generated huge litigation consuming substantial time of the courts,” a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya said in a judgment delivered on Wednesday and made available to media Thursday.
Stating that National Commission on Farmers headed by noted farm scientist M.S. Swaminathan had opposed acquiring of the agriculture land, the top court said this would not only “deprive” the farmers of their livelihood but their entire future generations would be “ruined” and forced to “commit suicide” as was witnessed in many parts of the country.
“It appears that the concerned authorities are totally unmindful of the plight of those sections of the society, who are deprive of their only asset like small house and small land holdings,” the apex court said while asking the government agencies to first focus on the available government land for setting up any development project.