Owner to get back land if compensation for acquisition not paid in 30 days: HC

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 17

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that landowners appearing before it would be entitled to take back the possession of their land if the compensation for acquisition was not paid to them within a month.

Gives last chance to state

If the state fails to pay the amount assessed by the Land Acquisition Collector, the court is compelled to issue such directions. As a last opportunity, the state has been granted a period of 30 days to pay the amount. — Justice Anil Kshetarpal, High Court

The direction came after Justice Anil Kshetarpal of the High Court described as shocking the fact that the amount assessed by the Land Acquisition

Collector in 2017 had not been paid and the owners, who were “deprived of their precious land”, were being made to run from pillar to post.

The matter was brought to Justice Kshetarpal’s notice after a petition was filed by Rishpal Singh and other petitioners against the state and other respondents. Taking on record an affidavit filed

by an executive engineer of Muktsar, Justice Kshetarpal asserted it was not in dispute that the acquired land’s possession was taken away by the respondent without the payment of complete compensation. In fact, it was stated that 52 per cent of the compensation amount had not been paid as it had not been released by the state government.

Referring to the scheme of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, Justice Kshetarpal added the Land Acquisition Collector was required to tender the amount at the time of award announcement. The stand of the respondents that the petitioners would be paid as and when the amount was released was not in accordance of the scheme of the Act. Justice Kshetarpal ruled that the remaining amount of compensation had been wrongly withheld by the authorities.

Disposing of the writ petition, he directed the Land Acquisition Collector to release the payment to the petitioners, if there was no dispute, within a month, failing which the petitioners would be entitled to take back possession of their land.

“This court is conscious of the fact that such a step may cause inconvenience to the public, however, the petitioners, who have been deprived of their property, are required to be adequately compensated,” Justice Kshetarpal stated.

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