What is Wrong with the Act

We must state clearly at the very beginning that the Land Acquisition Act does not give you any rights to prevent the acquisition of your land. You can only delay acquisition by raising objections.

The Government is empowered to acquire land for public purpose. Yet the term "public purpose" is nowhere defined in the Act. Only examples and illustrations of what is public purpose are given. They are by no means conclusive.'-

You can object to the proposed acquisition on the ground that the purpose is not a public one, or that your land is not suited to such public purpose. But in order to do so you need information. For example, if you wish to argue that your land should/need not be acquired to construct a road or a dam, because it is not suitable for such construction you must have a lot of detailed information about the proposed construction. If you wish to argue that the purpose is not a public purpose you will need even more and wider information about the project and the economy as a whole. The time prescribed for raising objections is one month. Much of this information will not be available within that short a time, and you might not be able to raise any objections. Even if you do, the Collector's decisions on your objections is final. It is hard to imagine any situation in which the Collector goes against government planning and accepts your objections.

Raising objections is therefore not a very successful exercise in stopping acquisition. But you can delay acquisition. Delay may make the project too expensive to be profitable.

'The Courts do not have the power to decide whether the purpose behind the acquisition was a public purpose. The Court can only hear you if the Collector did not "consider your objections. All that the Court can do is to direct the Collector to hear you. It cannot decide on merits of the case.

The Government is also armed with emergency/urgency powers, with which it can cut short the entire process of notices and objections. The term "urgency" is nowhere defined in the Act. "Emergency" is also not defined though at least examples of it are given. If your land is acquired in case of an emergency or urgency you cannot raise objections. Nor can the Courts ask whether there was an urgency or emergency,,

Under the Act you have only the right to ask for a higher amount of compensation, or to challenge the number of people who are sharing in it.

The Amendment Act of 1984 has not changed the picture substantially. The basic position remains the same. In some ways Government powers have been increased. In other ways the position on money compensation has been eased for the landholder. Thus, now land can be acquired for public corporations on the same terms as the Government as though acquisition for such State owned or controlled corporations was a public purpose. Earlier they were treated like any other company and had to satisfy the two preconditions laid down on S. 39.

The Amendment Act throws a few consolations to the landholders : The whole process from first notice u/s 4(1) to the final award u/s 11 has to be completed in three years. Before 1984 the time difference between the two notices under Ss. 4 and 6 alone could be three years. As compensation is computed in terms of value of land on the date of the notice u/s 4 it is hoped that a more rapid settlement will keep down the difference between the compensation awarded and the market prices on the date of the Award.

The amount of solatium has been increased from 15t to 30. In case of acquisition under emergency or urgency powers 80 of the compensation estimated by the Collector must be paid on the spot, though the award itself will follow. If one person gets the award enhanced by Court, others can now take advantage of the Court order, and ask the Collector to reassess the amount paid to them.

But all these are monetary gains. The basic power of the State to acquire land has not been curtailed in anyway. On the contrary it has increased. At same time it is reliably learnt that most State Governments, which ever the ruling party, are very keen to increase their powers to acquire land more speedily. They want to reduce even the few rights people have to delay acquisition by raising objections or by going to Court. Some of them argue that publishing notices in their papers is very expensive, and the gazette notices should be enough. Well, gazettes are not seen by most people. That means that the Governments will take away the little information people have.

It is obvious that the Government needs more and more land for industrial development and that delays in acquisition push up their costs. The Land Acquisition Act is therefore likely to become more anti-people, more weighted in favour of the Government.

The Act is also weighted in favour of the affluent. Land can be acquired for the public purpose of hotels; it can be acquired for the public purpose of co-operative housing societies of lawyers, government servants and other professionals; the land they get for a song escalates in value in no time at all. The houses or flats constructed on it also shoot up in price.

In a few years the artist's colony will have no artists. The original inhabitants die, and the sons and daughters take to other professions. Yet they will keep the houses. Others may leave the city or even the country, and they will sell or rent out the house or flats for enormous amounts. But the original landholder, who used to grow a crop there once a year, will not benefit from this increase. Yet this acquisition is for public purpose.

The only recourse that people have is to use the political process - create public opinion, hold meetings, put pressure on MPs and MLAs, and on the Government. While campaigning against acquisition and displacement the people can have another arrow to their bow. They can be active in demanding to know their rehabilitation rights from the government. They can be aggressive and uncompromising and compel the Government to spell out its rehabilitation plans in detail. This may be also a way to make acquisition too expensive and non-beneficial.

The Land Acquisition Act is a means for acquiring land for money. The fight against it has to be a political fight.