To,
Hon Secretary,
Rural Development Dept.
Govt. of India,New Delhi
Re :- Draft of The Land Acquisition,
Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011
Respected Sir,
In the matter of above reference, I the undersigned, Adv. Pradeep
Chandrakant Parulekar, residing at 2821, Anand Bhuvan, Veer Savarkar Path
Ratnagiri , in Maharashtra State, hereby submit my humble comments and
objections to the bill.
At the outset, let me congratulate the Government for having thought on
the point of giving substantial relief in terms of money, subsistence and
rehabilitation to the aggrieved persons, in its real sense. From this viewpoint,
'Rehabilitation and Resettlement' part of the Bill is a good concept and, with
some changes it can be converted into statute.
However, I have strongest objection for the first part of the Bill i.e. 'The
Land Acquisition Process' that is proposed to be introduced. There are several
conceptual points because of which, in my opinion, this Bill is neither in public
interest nor it is in the interest of peasants and horticulturists of India who are
the real owners of Indian soil. Objections in this respect can be briefly
considered as under;
As mentioned in the forwarding letter to the draft bill, written by Shri
Jairam Ramesh, then Minister for Rural Development,
" there are 18 other statutes of Central Government for Land Acquisition.
Provisions of Draft bill are to be in addition to the existing statutes and
this Bill will have primacy over other Acts."
The Honorable Minister has only referred to the Central Laws regarding
acquisition. I would like to add that every state may have several other Acts,
State Amendments and other compulsive procedures for taking possession of
land for various purposes.
I humbly register my protest to this adding up another arm in the armory
of executive for the same purpose. It is pertaining to note that in every such
Act, the purpose of acquisition is always 'Public Purpose'. This multiplicity
of statutes for the same purpose is going to add to the chaotic condition
caused by it's excessive use and alleged misuse of the existing laws.
Honorable Minister has further observed in his forwarding letter that
"Despite several amendments the basic law has become archaic." If that be
so, why is Government thinking of retaining those 'archaic' laws. I suggest
the Government must consider amalgamating all the existing laws regarding
acquisition and to create a 'single well thought unified land acquisition law
that will be applicable throughout India.'
As submitted above, the 'RR aspect' of the Bill is new and attractive
concept that is introduced in the Bill. If Government is really thinking of
protecting interests of poor farmers and land owners of India and if
Government wants to retain the existing land acquisition laws, I submit that
only the 'RR' part of the Bill be converted into statute. I also submit that a
specific provision in that unified Statute can be made providing that in case
of repugnancy between the provisions of existing laws and the proposed law,
provisions in 'RR Bill' shall prevail and the provisions in the other Acts shall
stand repealed to that extent. By doing this, in my opinion, futile endeavor to
codify duplication of already existing law can be avoided. At the same time,
such 'RR' law will provide speedy and interest protecting machinery for the
landholders of India, and the existing land acquisition laws will stand
strengthened.
The basic flaw that lies in this Bill is that under the garb of providing land
acquisition machinery for strategic and RR purposes, for meeting needs
arising from natural calamities and for infrastructure and industry, this bill
appears to have been drafted to nourish and support the land hunger of the
private companies and the corporate sector. This objection can be more
clarified and better understood by the following circumstances namely;
i) Paragraph 4 of the forwarding letter by Hon'ble Jairam Ramesh
points to the object behind the Bill. According to Hon'ble Minister, in order
to remove asymmetry of power and information between the sellers and
purchasers regarding Land Market in India that this Bill is introduced "to
place a transparent and flexible set of rules and regulations."
ii) Provisions of the Bill, however, are altogether different. When
Government intends to play a catalyst role in this land transfer process,
where is the question of there being any 'compulsive' approach in getting the
lands acquired? Government can just lay down set of executable rules so as
to ensure that there is no undue influence exerted by either party to the land
dealings, i.e. between the private companies and the landholders.
iii) If Government does not aim at providing land by compulsion,
there should be a clause in the Act that any person or group of persons
objects to the acquisition of lands for the private companies, the proposal
shall be dropped, so that there can be a fair competition between the
purchaser and the buyer.
iv) For this reason, it is also suggested that requirement of land of
private companies for any purpose, much less public purpose should be
deleted from the definition of 'Public Purpose' under that Act.
v) Hon'ble Minister has written in the forwarding letter that 'this bill
does not preclude private companies buying lands directly from farmers and
others.' Does it not mean that bill is aimed at assisting the Companies from
'acquiring' lands by process of law, when there are difficulties to Companies
(only)? Fair and legal purpose behind the bill can very well be achieved by
mere monitoring the situation by laying down set of rules. My objection to
the bill is about the 'executive role' of Government in the process of
acquisition of lands for private Companies.
Coming to the provisions of the draft bill, first and foremost objection is
to the very first section about the operative clause. As per constitutional
provisions and the precedents up to date, every Act comes in to operation
after getting assent from President and after publication in the Govt. Gazette.
Under this bill, however, it is proposed that " bill shall be operative after
publication in Gazette which shall not be more than 3 months from the
passage of the Bill by both houses." This departure from the spirit of
constitution and the precedents is not acceptable on any hypothesis. By such
provision, powers of Hon'ble President of India to consider the propriety of
the bill before giving assent and before converting a bill in to statute will be
taken away. Such a provision, being ultra-virus the constitutional set up, is
likely to be scraped.
Provisions of section 1A of the bill also deserve a second thought.
According to this section, provisions of this Act will be applicable when the
Government 'acquires' the land. If the scheme of the Act is considered, it will
be clear that application of the provisions of this Bill becomes necessary
much more earlier than actual acquisition. As such, in order to give proper
effect to the spirit of the legislation, the relevant words in the section should
be "when Government proposes or intends to acquire" as against the words
'Government acquires'. Especially on the background of the provisions of
second proviso to sub section 1 of section 1A, the words presently in the bill
will cause far reaching adverse effects. As such, it is suggested to substitute
the words as mentioned above.
Coming to definition clauses in section 2, definition of 'Person Interested'
contained in clause 2(v) needs change, in as much as in many projects like
electricity generation, an area of some kilometers outside actual project area
is also under peril, and persons residing therein also have some grievances
and demands to make. So for all practical purposes, such persons should also
be given an opportunity of being heard. This can be done by including
persons in such area as "Persons Interested". Scope of the public hearing to
be held at the affected area need to be expanded, and instead of only affected
persons, even the persons interested should also be given right to submit their
say.
Provisions of section 69 pertaining to Return of Unutilized Land need a
change. The basic idea behind inserting this section is to prohibit transfer of
purpose for which land is acquired. If that be so, the very purpose is defeated
by the words "except for a public purpose" presently in that section. These
words deserve to be deleted, and a mandate should be there on everybody to
utilize the property only for a purpose for which it was acquired, or else to
return the same to its owner in a time bound manner.
Sir, in the given short period, I could point out very few, but very
important points of objection in this Bill. Basic objection to the Bill that this
is being done to unduly assist Corporate Sector, needs to be examined more
seriously. If Government wants to play a role of land acquisition assisting
agency, let the Government openly come out with that approach. In that case
such assistance can also be given to individuals or groups of persons or
NGOs.
To sum up, I submit that passing of the Bill as it is will mean creation
of a Land Monsters in future at the cost of peasants and land owners of India.
I ,therefore, humbly request that this Bill may please be withdrawn for
making basic and through scrutiny, should not be tabled and should be sent to
Select Committee, if it is so permissible.
19th August 2011 Advocate Pradeep C Parulekar
Anand Bhuvan, Veer Savarkar Path
Ratnagiri Maharashtra 415 612.
babaparulekar@gmail.com
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