New bench to hear Noida case

The cases will now be heard by a new bench to be constituted by Chief justice of Allahabad High Court Justice Syed Rafat Alam at a later date.

The acquisition of nearly 3,500 hectares (ha) of land by the Noida and Greater Noida Authorities in nearly 20 villages using the urgency clause was to be taken up by the three-judge bench on Wednesday.

As the bench — comprising Justices R K Agrawal,Ashok Bhushan and V K Shukla — sat down to begin proceedings,Justice Agrawal recused himself from the case because his son Rahul Agrawal was representing one of the builders.

The builders had filed a petition,requesting the court to make them a party in the case. However,the court had kept their petition pending,which too was to be decided by the three-judge bench. The bench was also to examine a similar petition filed by the flat buyers’ association.

On August 26,a division bench headed by Justice Amitava Lala had referred all cases related to land acquisition in Noida and Greater Noida to a larger bench after it was brought to the court’s notice that there were two conflicting judgments by different benches of the same high court on land acquisition in Patwari village.

While one bench had in 2008 upheld the government’s decision to acquire land,another bench this year had cancelled acquisition of 589 ha of land. The division bench had clubbed all petitions of the same nature and referred it to the larger bench.

Since then,villagers from more than half-a-dozen villages have approached the high court,challenging land acquisition by the government using the urgency clause. Among them are villagers from UP chief minister Mayawati’s ancestral village Badalpur. They have not only alleged the acquisition of land but also accused the administration of being discriminatory in award of compensation.

The farmers have also accused the government of selling the land,acquired in the name of planned industrial development,to private developers.

More farmers will accept deal: Greater Noida CEO

Noida: Announcing that a petition against the Allahabad High Court decision to refer the Patwari land acquisition matter to a larger bench had been dismissed as withdrawn by the Supreme Court,the Greater Noida Authority on Wednesday said this provided them an opportunity to bring more farmers on board.

Rama Raman,CEO of the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority,said a special leave petition filed by Pramod Kumar had been dismissed as withdrawn by the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court has told farmers that there is no harm in the case being referred to a larger bench of the Allahabad High Court. If they feel later that the larger bench has not done them justice,they can always go back to the Supreme Court in appeal. We believe the decision is neither for or against the Authority but we have got relief in the sense we have more time to persuade farmers (to accept the revised compensation package),” he said. The Authority,he said,will decide on other villages after a ruling on the Patwari matter.

According to Rama Raman,950 farmers have agreed to a settlement but 650 still need to be convinced. “From the 91 petitioners,we have 65 on board. The rest should come on board gradually. They have been unable to sign the agreement due to technical reasons. There are farmers who have lost land documents. We will try to solve these problems,” he said.

He said the Authority had stretched its financial resources to provide enhanced compensation to Patwari farmers. “The farmers need to understand that the Authority is not a company. We do not get grants,we neither earn profits. We give land at subsidised rates and develop it by taking loans from banks. Today,we are in debt of Rs 3,500 crore. We offer land at Rs 3,500 per sq m and incur an expense of Rs 11,000 per sq m to develop the land,” he said.