High-powered bodies can only make recommendations,state govt to take final decision: HC

Set up to decide disputes pertaining to land acquisition cases,high-powered committees at best can only make recommendations to the state government and such suggestions will not be final decisions,the Punjab and Haryana High Court has said.

Set up to decide disputes pertaining to land acquisition cases,high-powered committees at best can only make recommendations to the state government and such suggestions will not be final decisions,the Punjab and Haryana High Court has said.

The final decision will only be that of the state government and that too by way of a notification,a full bench of the court comprising Chief Justice A K Sikri and Justices Hemant Gupta and Rajiv Narain Raina said last week. The judgment assumes significance since the Haryana government,in the past,had constituted several high-powered committees to decide cases filed by landowners challenging acquisition of their land.

The state government is within its executive powers to seek opinion of such person or authority before it exercises jurisdiction conferred on it under the provisions of Land Acquisition Act-1894,ie,under Section 6 or under Section 48 of the Act but the final decision can be only by the state government and too by way of the notifications the judgment stated.

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It added: But if the possession has not been taken by the land acquisition collector as per the award (compensation) announced by it,the state government can allow the acquisitions proceedings to lapse without publication of notification,if it is no longer interested in acquisition of land.

The directions were passed on a petition filed by Ram Murti Sarin a resident of Sonepat in Haryana. The petitioner had challenged the acquisition of land by the state government in 2001 for public purpose,alleging procedural lapses.

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