Supreme Court Issues Notice To Central State Govt Over Dadri Project

The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Union of India and the State of Uttar Pradesh on a petition challenging the legality of land acquisition for a mega-power project popularly known as the Dadri Project.

The Supreme Court today issued notice to the Union of India and the State of Uttar Pradesh on a petition challenging the legality of land acquisition for a mega-power project popularly known as the Dadri Project.

The bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justice R V Raveendran and Justice J M Panchal issued the order while dealing with a public interest litigation filed by Sahayog Samiti, a non-government organization, representing the interests of farmers whose agricultural land was acquired for the project.

This has put a question mark over the implementation of the gas-based thermal power generation project which is a much advertised component of the ambitious energy and power development program of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG).

For this purpose, nearly 903 hectares of good agricultural land was acquired from the farmers of seven villages in district Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. The land was stated to be acquired for setting up of a gas-based thermal power generation project. As per the notification, the land was urgently required for the above "public purpose" and as such Section 17 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act was invoked thereby negating the right of objections by the affected persons. The petitioners alleged that while the land was said to be acquired for "public purpose", the state government had entered into an agreement with a private company (Reliance Energy Generation Ltd) for development, construction, financing, operating and maintaining a power station of 3,500 MW capacity. "Acquisition for public purpose can only be resorted to if the compensation is to be paid by the government from its own exchequer. However in the instant case, in reality, the land has been acquired for a private limited company which is not a government company". The petitioners further stated that such a project would come within the purview of Section 40 (1) (aa) of the Land Acquisition Act wherein the acquisition is possible only after proper inquiry. Invocation of Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act is not permissible when the acquisition is being made for a private company.

The counsels for the petitioners, Mr. K T S Tulsi,Sr.Advocate and Mr. Rishi Malhotra,Advocate, stated that under Rule 4 (1) (vi) of the Land Acquisition (Company) Rules where the land proposed to be acquired is good agricultural land, the government has a duty to satisfy itself that no other alternate site can be found to avoid acquisition of fertile/ cultivated land. The counsels emphasized that this condition was not fulfilled by the State as the government in obvious collusion with the private company, chose to ignore the statute and gave away the land of the petitioners on a platter to a private company.
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Citing the case " Devender Singh & Ors. Vs. State of Punjab & Ors.", the petitioners said that in the said case, while upholding Rule 4 of the Land Acquisition (Company) Rules, 1963, the Supreme Court has held that the same is mandatory in nature and imperative in character. Since the said statute has been entirely ignored in the present case, the petitioner prayed for quashing the notification dated February 11, 2004 and the consequent acquisition proceedings initiated by the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Sahayog Samiti is a registered body with the registrar of Societies and Chits, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh and is working for the upliftment of the farmers and downtrodden strata of society.