Farmers demand return of land acquired for Chinnonipally reservoir

​Hyderabad: The High Court at Hyderabad on Wednesday asked the Telangana State government to respond to the plea of 130 farmers and land losers for the return of their lands acquired for Chinnonipally Balancing Reservoir under Nettempadu Lift Irrigation Project in Gadwal district.

Justice A V Sesha Sai gave this direction while hearing the pleas of K Gopal Rao, Paramesh and 128 other land losers seeking return of their lands as the project was yet to be completed even after a lapse of 12 years.

M V Durga Prasad, counsel for the petitioners, informed the judge that the entire proceedings of land acquisition in this case had been vitiated by fraud and illegality. He brought to the notice of the judge how some petitioners’ signatures were forged and how in some cases no signatures were appended in the consent award.

The award itself began as a draft award and ended as a final award. He said although nearly 2,000 acres of land were acquired for this project taking recourse to urgency clause in Land Acquisition Act, 1894, the respondents had failed to complete the project even after 12 years.

Full compensation was also not paid. In such circumstances, when there was no longer any public interest involved because of undue delay, he sought return of the lands to the farmers. Alternatively he sought quashing of the land acquisition proceedings as per Section 24(2) of the new Land Acquisition Act 2013.

The said section stipulated that if an award for land acquisition was passed five years or more prior to the enactment of 2013 Act and no compensation was paid or possession of the land was not taken, then those acquisition proceedings were deemed to have lapsed.

Sharat Kumar, Telangana Special Government Pleader, submitted to the court that over 70 per cent of project works was completed but remaining works are pending. The judge directed him to get instructions in this regard and posted the matter to post vacation.