BENGALURU: Acquiring poor farmers’ land and putting it in the hands of real estate developers is a daylight dacoity by the state authorities to favour land sharks, said the High Court of Karnataka, setting aside the order passed by a single judge bench in favour of a private firm.
The division bench said the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board’s (KIADB) benevolence towards the petitioner, Royal Fragrances Private Limited (RFPL), can be measured from the fact that though the demand was for only 12 acres of land, the board allotted 29 acres and seven and a half guntas to the company. The quickness with which the KIADB and the state machinery acted to acquire the land for the RFPL flouting the prescribed procedure would throw light on malafide and illegality in acquiring the lands & diversion to land mafia, it said.
A division bench of Justice DK Singh and Justice Tara Vitasta Ganju made these scathing remarks in their order dated February 27, allowing the appeal filed in 2013 by legal heirs of deceased Patel Jetalal Ramaji and one another questioning the single judge’s order dated March 3, 2013, passed on the petition filed by the RFPL.
Pointing out that the application of RFPL dated August 30, 2001, had been allowed within 18 days by the committee, the division bench noted that everything appears to be stage-managed to help and create a land bank for the real estate development for private benefit at the cost of the poor farmers and public interest.
The bench said the acquisition of the land in favour of the RFPL is nothing but a colourable exercise of power and in violation of the mandatory procedure.
“The speed with which the land was acquired for it is a complete mala fide exercise of power and such acquisition cannot be upheld. It was a daylight dacoity on poor farmers by the state authorities in favour of the land sharks. No person can be deprived of his property without due process of law and then too, the property can be acquired for public purpose.
The impugned order passed by the single judge is liable to be set aside,” the high court bench said.
The RFPL challenged the decision taken by the state government in 2009 and a direction issued to the KIADB to denotify certain land pieces.