SC upholds land acquisition for Yamuna Expressway project

Last month, farmers of the villages along the road had resorted to agitation claiming more compensation for the acquisition of their land for the 160-km Yamuna Expressway Project, which is scheduled to be completed before the Commonwealth Games in October. After the opening up of the six-lane road, the travel time will be reduced to three hours from Delhi to Agra.

A Bench headed by justice VS Sirpurkar upheld the Allahabad high court’s judgement of November 30 last year that gave nod to the land acquisition on the grounds that the scale of justice must tilt towards the right to development of the millions?who will be benefited from the road and the development of the area?as against the human rights of 35 petitioners, who alleged that the acquistion was not in the public interest.

The court said ?there is nothing to indicate that the acquisition is for Jaiprakash Industries. Therefore, we are at pains to point out that the government was only using the company for implementing its policy.?

According to justice Sirpurkar, ?at the time when the project was conceived in 2001, JPL was not in existence. It came in existence only later on… Therefore, it cannot be said that the whole project was envisaged keeping this company in view. That would be the first reason to reject the argument that the whole scheme was a result of colourable exercise of power…We must say that there was a full transparency in the whole process and the whole process was checked, rechecked and re-rechecked, leaving no scope to infer any bias in favour of the company.

He further said, ?This was an acquisition for building up a highway and the petitions pertained to the land required for interchange. It is obvious that the alignment of the highway cannot be changed, as its design has been prepared after consideration by the experts. This is a typical example of the individual having to sacrifice his land for the public good.