Telangana govt told not to acquire lands under urgency clause

Taking a serious note of the Telangana State government invoking the urgency clause for acquiring lands for Mallannasagar irrigation project, the High Court at Hyderabad directed the government to not take possession of those lands till it decided on the validity of such invocation.

The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A Shankar Narayan passed the order while hearing a PIL challenging various notifications issued by the State government under the new 2013 Land Acquisition Act.

Counsel for the petitioner B Rachna Reddy informed the bench that these notifications were issued without undertaking the social impact assessment (SIA) study as mandated by the Act.

She found fault with the government invoking Section 6(2) of the Act to exempt the SIA study and pointed out that the concerned section gave such an exemption only when a parallel environment impact assessment (EIA) study was required under any other law. The bench questioned the State as to how it can avoid both SIA and EIA for such projects.

When the counsel for petitioner informed the bench that the State government had invoked Section 40 of the Act to completely do away with SIA, requirements of food security etc, the bench took serious note of it.

The Special Government Pleader Mahender Reddy defended the action of the government, saying that it had the power under Section 40 (1). The bench differed on this interpretation and questioned necessity for invoking such a clause that restricted its application in situations of national security or natural calamities.

The bench made it clear that no farmer should be dispossessed of his land under this notification for a period of four weeks till it decided on its validity. The matter has been posted to two weeks.