Enhanced NOIDA land compensation not precedent for future, says SC

The Supreme Court has said that the increased compensation of 64.7 percent coupled with allotment of developed land to the extent of 10 percent of the land acquired from each land owner in NOIDA and Greater NIOIDA would not be treated as a precedent for the award of such compensation for future acquisitions.

".. we make it clear that directions of the (Allahabad) high court are given in the a unique and peculiar/specific background and, therefore, it would not form precedent for future cases," said a bench of Chief Justice H.L.Dattu, Justice A.K.Sikri and Justice Arun Mishra in their reasoned judgment in respect of which brief orders were pronounced on May 14.

Though the operative part of the court's verdict was pronounced in the court on May 14 itself but the full judgment was made available only on Tuesday.

In the instant case the full bench of Allahabad High Court, by its order of October 21, 2011, while quashing the acquisition of land in 61 villages falling in Noida and Greater NOIDA, had allowed the NOIDA authority to continue to retain the acquired land instead of restoring ownership to the original land owners. They instead received 64.7 percent enhancement in compensations and farmers getting 10 percent of the developed land subject to a maximum of 2,500 square metres.

The apex court noted that farmers whose land was acquired for industrial purposes by invoking emergency provisions were not aggrieved by the manner that the acquisition was undertaken by the NOIDA authority, but a large portion of the land acquired was sought to be given away to the builders for development of the land as residential.

Referring to the earlier verdicts, it said that the argument of the farmers that giving away of the land to the private developers for construction of residential units gave them the fresh cause of action, "gets dented to a great extent".

Invoking the urgency clause, the NOIDA authority had in 2008 acquired 589.188 hectares of land in NOIDA and Greater NOIDA in Dadri sub-division) of Gautam Budha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh.

NOIDA authority had acquired land for industrial purposes but later it changed the land use in respect of a large chunk of it for residential purposes and gave it to builders.