RIL files plea in HC against land acquisition law provision

Leading business house Reliance Industries (RIL) has challenged in Gujarat High Court a provision of the 2013 land acquisition act that allows acquisition to lapse if possession of land is not taken in five years, terming it unconstitutional.
The RIL, in a petition filed last month, challenged section 24 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act-2013 and prayed for declaring the section unconstitutional and violative of fundamental rights.
The company's petition came in response to 12 farmers of five villages of Jamnagar district approaching the court in 2014 to declare their land acquisition as void, as government failed to pay compensation and take possession of the acquired land within five years.

As per the petition of RIL, Section 24 (2) also gives rights to retrospectively take the land acquired under the earlier Land Acquisition Act of 1894.
Section 24 (2) of the 2013 Act reads: "Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) in case of land acquisition proceedings initiated under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, where as award under the said section has been made five years or more prior to the commencement of this Act, but the physical possession of the land has not been taken or the compensation has not been paid the said proceedings shall be deemed to have lapsed..."

The state government had acquired around 11,235 acres of land for RIL for setting up its oil refinery in Jamnagar district.

Petitioner farmers from villages of Jamnagar district, who had approached the high court in 2014, had contended in their petition that as per the 2013 Land Act, if possession of land has not been taken or compensation has not been paid for five years, the proceedings should be deemed to have lapsed.
Earlier, a HC bench headed by then acting Chief Justice V M Sahai had recused itself from hearing the case.
When the farmers' case was in the final stage of hearing, RIL came up with a separate petition asking for deletion of section 24, which they said is ultra vires and is in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.

Advocate for farmers, Anand Yagnik, on January 4, during the hearing of petition filed by RIL, requested the court to make the farmers party in the petition and asked it not to file any order without hearing them.
The HC bench of acting Chief Justice Jayant Patel and Justice V M Pancholi allowed the farmers' request and posted the matter for further hearing on January 11.