Fresh plea in HC against AAP govt notification on circle rate

A fresh PIL has been moved before Delhi High Court seeking quashing of an AAP government notification enhancing the circle rate for acquiring agricultural land in the city by three times.
The writ petition was mentioned for urgent hearing before a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva which decided to hear the matter and asked that it be listed before the bench of Chief Justice G Rohini.
The matter is likely to come up for hearing tomorrow.
The plea, filed by a city Congress leader Naresh Kumar, sought direction to the Delhi government to fix uniform rates for agricultural land throughout Delhi instead of fixing different rates for different areas of the city, so as to protect the right of equality of all farmers.

The plea said the notification of August 4, issued by the government of NCT Delhi, enhanced the circle rates in a discriminatory manner and it should be declared as "null and void."
"The decision to fix different rates for the agricultural land to be acquired by the government is without any logic and justification," the plea said.

It further said the government had no competence to issue such notifications and it was the Lieutenant Governor who is the government and competent authority to take the decision in this behalf and he has not approved the same.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has fixed the new rates in the range of Rs 1 crore to Rs 3.5 crore per acre from the earlier Rs 53 lakh per acre.

The High Court had earlier dismissed a similar plea saying "no case is made out" as the notification was issued in the name of the Lieutenant Governor (LG).