Hyderabad High Court restricts Telangana on GO 123

Hyderabad: In a setback to the Telangana state government, the Hyderabad High Court on Thursday directed that the state shall henceforth not purchase lands under Government Order Ms No. 123 dated July 30, 2015, for the public purpose of construction of irrigation projects.

A division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice U. Durga Prasad Rao was granting interim orders in a batch of writ petitions questioning the validity of GO 123.

GO 123 allows land owners to willingly sell their land and properties for a consideration on the basis of an agreement between the land owner and the user department.

It may be recalled that apart from issuing GO 123, the TS government had also passed a new Act — The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilita-tion and Resettlement (Telangana Amendment) Act 2016 — to overcome the ‘Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilita-tion and Resettlement Act, 2013’ also known as Land Acquisition Act of 2013, for land acquisition in the state and is awaiting Presidential assent.

The new Act is aimed at ensuring expeditious procurement of land for public purposes. Land owners can sell their lands to the government after negotiations for compensation based on the prevailing market value of the land in that area.

G0123 violates 2013 Act: Court
Legal experts say that in the light of this order, it will be difficult for the government to deny benefits of rehabilitation to those dependent on the land to be acquired but who are not owners.

The bench noted that the petitioners are either land owners or assignees of land or other affected persons living in villages which will be submerged because of construction of several irrigation projects by the state.

The bench noted that land Act of 2013 confers rights not only on those whose lands and other immovable property is to be acquired by the state, but also on families that do not own land, even where one of a family memberwho is an agricultural labourer, an agricultural tenant, an artisan or a share-cropper whose primary source of livelihood is adversely affected by the acquisition.

The bench said, “The state government should not be permitted, hereinafter, to enter into contracts under GO 123 to purchase lands for construction of irrigation projects without complying with the rehabilitation and resettlement provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, more particularly those stipulated under the Second and Third Schedules of the Act.”

The bench ruled that the contracts being made by the state government under GO 123 (i.e. sale deeds executed in its favour by land owners) “violate the statutory rights of affected families, other than land owners, which are protected by the 2013 Act”.

Holding that the contracts entered into by the state under GO 123, prima facie, violate Section 23 of the Indian Contract Act, the bench said the question whether such of the contracts that are made are void ab initio, can only be answered on the petitions being finally heard.