Chandigarh: In a major setback to Haryana government, the Punjab & Haryana High Court has quashed Section 101(A) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement Act, 2013. The section empowered the state government to denotify land if the public purpose for which it was acquired became unviable.
High court held that the ‘absolute monarch’ power was exercised by the Haryana government under the whims and fancies of the executive, without paying any heed to the policy framed.
Division bench comprising Justice G S Sandhawalia and Justice Harpreet Kaur Jeewan passed these orders while hearing a batch of petitions.
The bench held that the new section added by the state inherently prone to misuse on the three grounds—No time limit in the form of any safeguard has been provided within which the state govt can withdraw from acquisition after initiation of the process of acquisition, after taking possession, etc—-It provided a unilateral decision at the hands of the state and no criteria provided under the section for exercising jurisdiction as the phrases “unviable” and “non-essential” have not been defined in the section.
Speaking for the bench, Justice Sandhwalia also observed that a reading of the section indicates that it can create great hardship to displaced landowners and is totally unfair for the landowners whose land has been put to compulsory acquisition on the principle of eminent domain and even to their legal heirs.
