West Bengal Left Front handing over 1,000 acres land in 2006 to Tata Nano "illegal", return it to farmers: SC

By A Representative
In a crucial judgment, the Supreme Court has quashed the acquisition of 1,000 acres of land in Singur by West Bengal’s Left Front government in 2006 for Tata’s Nano project, saying it was “illegal” and “violation of law”. Civil rights organizations, backed by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, had moved the apex court challenging the acquisition.
The Nano small car plant was shifted to Gujarat's Sanand district after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then state chief minister, offered huge concessions, said to be to the tune of Rs 20,000 crore. While the acquisition was carried out by the Left government in West Bengal, after she came to power, Banerjee came up with the Singur Land Acquisition Act to return the land back to the farmers.
Called Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011, it allowed the Banerjee government to reclaim the 1,000 acres of land given to Tata Motors in 2006. The West Bengal High Court, hearing a petition, struck down the Act. However, civil rights organizations backing farmers and and Banerjee challenged the High Court order in the apex court.
Pronouncing the judgment, the bench, consisting of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Arun Mishra, directed the Banerjee government to hand over the land acquired from the farmers within 12 weeks. The bench ruled that the farmers, who got compensation from the state government need not return it because “they were deprived of their livelihood for the last 10 years”.
On May 5, even as reserving the judgment, the apex court had questioned the manner in which the land was allotted to Tata Motors “without adhering to the section 4 and 5 of the Land Acquisition Act which mandate public notice for receiving objections.”
The bench noted that the entire exercise was done by “bulldozing the law”, as the then West Bengal Cabinet, under the CPI-M-led Left government, suo motu cleared the allocation of the land identified by the automobile major without any notice to the people and hearing objections.
The apex court told senior lawyers, who appeared for Tata Nano, which was the main beneficiary of the 1,000 acres, that they could not argue that the farmers had “accepted the award so they cannot challenge the acquisition.”
Meanwhile, the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM), the top apex body of tens of people's organizations, has called the the Supreme Court order “a land mark decision”, insisting, this “marks another chapter in the long history of resistances by the people’s movements against forcible land acquisition in name of public purpose for private corporations.”
“Singur marked a turning point in 2006 when the resistance against the special economic zones were just gathering steam and it emboldened our collective struggles all around”, NAPM, which supported the Singur farmers' struggle, said.
NAPM added, it fully agreed with Justice Gowda’s observation that the land acquisition for a private company to build a car plant doesn’t constitute “public purpose”, as it is “in line with what we have been saying for long and only vindicates our position”.
Pointing out that the judgment was also a setback to the Modi government, which wished to amend the land law of 2013 by doing away with social impact assessment and consent clauses, NAPM said, “The NDA government thrice brought Ordinances to amend the law to facilitate easy acquisition of the land for private corporations and for profiteering in the name of the public purpose.”

Comments

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Bihar’s land at ₹1 per acre for Adani sparks outrage, NAPM calls it crony capitalism

By A Representative The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly condemned the Bihar government’s decision to lease 1,050 acres of land in Pirpainti, Bhagalpur district, to Adani Power for a 2,400 MW coal-based thermal power project.

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By A Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.

Counterview

Search This Blog