Orissa HC quashes land acquisition notifications for project

The Orissa High Court today quashed the land acquisition notifications of Balangir district Collector for acquisition of 272 acres of land in Bijkati village for the lower Suktel irrigation project.
Finding discrepancies in acquiring the land under Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, a Division Bench of Justices Kumari Sanju Panda and K R Mohapatra quashed the notifications.
A villager Prahallad Pradhan had approached the High Court seeking quashing of the notifications claiming the provisions of the Act have not been adhered to while issuing them.
While notification for expressing intent to acquire the land under Section 4 of the Act was made on December 31, 2011, the notification for declaration of acquisition under Section 6 of the Act was made more than 21 months later on October 22, 2013.

Stating that the notification under section 6 of the Act has to be made within 12 months of the notification made under section 4 of the Act, the petitioner had approached the High Court terming it as "arbitrary" and sought it to be quashed.