State not doing charity by paying compensation for land acquisition: Supreme Court

The State is not doing charity by paying compensation to citizens who are entitled to such payment when their land is acquired by the government, the Supreme Court recently observed [Sudha Bhalla and ors vs Rakesh Kumar Singh and ors]..The Court made it clear that the State and its instrumentalities cannot project that they are being gracious in compensating such landowners.A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta added that the right to property under Article 300-A of the Constitution is still a constitutional right."Depriving a citizen of his Constitutional Right to use the land for 20 years and then showing graciousness by paying the compensation and beating drums that the State has been gracious, in our view, is unacceptable. The State is not doing charity by paying compensation to the citizen for acquisition of land," the Court said. .The Court was dealing with a contempt case initiated against officials of the Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) who had failed to adequately compensate certain landowners whose land was acquired by the authority in 2004.The top court noted that a compensation award was passed in December 2023 only after the issue of contempt notices to the GDA..The Court dismissed the contention that the GDA has now provided the sought by the landowners. Among other observations, the Court noted that the GDA had taken seven long years to conclude that the land acquired was not residential land but agricultural land..An argument on behalf of the GDA that the delay has worked out well for the landowners since they would now get a "handsome amount" as compensation under the 2013 Land Acquisition Act, instead of a lesser amount under the earlier 1956 land acquisition law also failed to impress the Court. "This argument on behalf of the State or its instrumentalities after holding the land of a citizen for a period of 20 years and then taking a plea that the land owners are getting benefited, is something unpalatable," the Court said. .However, it closed the contempt of court proceedings after finding it plausible that there may have been miscommunications between the GDA and the lawyers who represented the authority in Court. The Court concluded that there was no wilful disobedience of the court's orders by the GDA and disposed of the contempt case. However, the Court clarified that it has not decided on the validity of the compensation award and that the landowners were still free to challenge the same if required. Any such challenge should be decided on within six months, the Court added. "If the GDA or its officers make an attempt to prolong the proceedings, the Court or the authorities would be free to draw an adverse inference and decide the proceedings within the aforesaid period," the Court further observed. .Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu briefed by a team from Vachher and Agrud appeared for the land-owners.Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi, Siddharth Luthra, and Ravindra Kumar appeared for the alleged contemnors (officials of the GDA).Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for the Ghaziabad Development Authority..[Read order]