In a ruling which can have far- reaching consequences, the Supreme Court today set aside the controversial acquisition of 997.11 acres of land in Singur in 2006 by the then Left Front government in West Bengal to set up Tata Motors’ ambitious Nano car manufacturing plant.
The verdict, which came as a huge setback to the auto major, was delivered by a bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Arun Mishra which quashed the land acquisition process invoked by the erstwhile CPI(M)-led government headed by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government, which first came to power in 2011 after spearheading agitation of cultivators affected by the acquisition, got a shot in its arm as the apex court approved its political plank that the land should be returned to the cultivators.
The two judges, who were unanimous in quashing the acquisition process and for retainment of the compensation awarded to the land owners and the cultivators for being deprived of the use of their land for last 10 years, gave their own separate reasonings for arriving at their findings.
They agreed that the land should be restored in 12 weeks to the owners and cultivators after completing the survey, identification and other formalities within 10 weeks.
The apex court said the state government cannot claim back the amount of compensation given to the land-losers as it had enjoyed the right over the acquired land for ten years.
There was disagreement between the two judges on two points, with Justice Gowda saying that the land was not acquired for public purpose directly by the Tata Motors and Justice Mishra holding that there was no illegality in the land acquisition of land for public purpose as it would have given employement to thousands of people in West Bengal.
Immediately after the verdict, Banerjee, the Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, termed the judgement as a landmark victory and said “We waited for ten years for this judgement and it is a victory of the farmers”.
Her party’s Lok Sabha MP and senior advocate Kalyan Bandopadhyay who spearheaded the legal battle told PTI that the judgement is going to be an “eye-opener” in land acquisition cases.
“After 10 years of a long political and legal battle, the apex court has successfully approved the stand taken by us to the extent that the acquisition was illegal,” he said.
( Source – PTI )
