Land acquisition for road: Year on, High Court orders status quo
Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 5
More than a year after the acquisition of land in Dhanas and Dadu Majra to connect Dakshin Marg to “PR-4” in Punjab came under judicial scanner, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today ordered the maintenance of status quo.
The directions by the Bench of Justice Ajay Tewari and Justice Rajesh Bhardwaj came on a petition alleging that value of the land belonging to politicians and bureaucrats there would increase by several crores.
The new road
The new bypass or PR-4 will start from the high-level bridge at Dadu Majra to the UT boundary on the Mullanpur side. The proposed road will come up on 18.13 acres to be acquired in Dadu Majra village and Dhanas. The new road will connect Highway No 21 and Sector 39, Chandigarh.
The petitioners, Jaspal Singh and others, contended that the Dhanas-Mullanpur-Siswan road connecting Punjab to Dakashin Marg in Chandigarh was just two kms from the proposed connecting road.
The petitioner’s counsel, Charanpal Singh Bagri and Gurjit Kaur Bagri, also contended that numerous residential and commercial projects were being set up by “famous private companies and builders” in Punjab abutting the PR-4 road.
Charanpal Singh Bagri added the “appropriate government” was trying to project the acquisition of land for the construction of 200-feet connectivity road to serve public purpose just to deprive the landowners of their legal rights enshrined under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
Bagri added the intention was to especially deprive 20 per cent reservation of land for landowners in the case of urbanisation. “Actually, it would serve the ulterior motives of builders, developers and politician who have already started their development projects as such amounting to urbanisation,” he submitted.
Bagri added the UT Administrator, just prior to the acquisition of land in Dhanas and Dadu Majra, also notified the “Policy for Land acquisition through Negotiation”, which was in contravention of the mandatory procedure and provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation And Resettlement Act.
Bagri also told the court that this was the first of its kind acquisition process initiated without updating the revenue record or the record of rights of the land concerned. He added the same had not been updated for the past many decades.
Bagri sought directions for considering the rate of land in question on a par with the rate of commercial and residential area, which was part and parcel of the same village. Elaborating, he submitted half area was part of Milk Colony in Dhanas and remaining part was subject matter of acquisition, where collector rate was more than Rs19 crore per acre.
The Bench referred the matter to another Bench hearing petitions filed in public interest.
