A single-judge bench of the High Court of Chhattisgarh, Bilaspur on 04.02.2019 in LAKHAN LAL KASHYAP Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH (WP(C) 309 of 2019) disposed of the writ petition. The bench was headed by Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra

FACTS:

The petitioner’s land had been acquired for Bilaspur-Ratanpur Bypass Road. However, while assessing compensation, multiplier of 1 had been used, whereas the Division Bench of Bombay Court in other connected petitions had set-aside the Notification in which multiplier factor of 1 was applied with direction to the State Government to issue fresh Notification indicating the multiplier factors in terms of the guidelines laid down in the statute and the judgment of the Division Bench.

ISSUES:

• Validity of the manner in which power of the State Government to issue such notification had been exercised.
• Validity of the usage of multiplier factor of 1 for determining the compensation.

CONTENTIONS:

By petitioners:

• The high court was right in setting aside the notification.
• The compensation provided for the land acquired is not fair enough due to which we have to bear losses.
• The multiplier factor of 1 should be revised.

OBSERVATIONS:

The court observed that:-

• The high court was right in setting aside the notification.
• Power of the government used was exercised as mindless exercise of power.
• One of the main primary objects of Land Acquisition Act,2013 was denied i.e., Fair compensation.
• Since by restricting the multiplier of factor to 1.00, the State is obviously trying to treat all land owners as one which will deny to the poor land owners of the remote villagers, fair compensation and rehabilitation, which is the primary object behind the new Land Acquisition Act of 2013.
• All awards and compensations in relation to the Petitioners but also to all such persons whose lands had been acquired and a multiplier of 1.00 had been used for calculating the compensation should be revised and revisited.

HELD:

The court disposed of the writ petition with the following directions:-

• The petitioner should move a representation before the concerned Collector (Land Acquisition) within a period of 4 weeks from the date of the judgement.
• The said Collector shall decide the representation within 10 weeks from the date of the State Government’s fresh Notification in terms of the directions issued by the Division Bench.

For full judgement refer: 

[embeddoc url=”http://cg.nic.in/hcbspjudgement/judgements_web/WP(C)309_19(04.02.19).pdf” download=”all”]