Gujarat High Court seeks info on NHAI compensation structure to decide bullet train litigations

The Gujarat High Court on Friday directed the state government to provide details of the compensation structure adopted by National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for acquiring land for an expressway project running parallel to the proposed corridor for the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project.

The division bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav sought the information while hearing a bunch of petitions filed by farmers who are opposing the proposed acquisition of their land for the bullet train project. Notably, the final arguments in the petitions were concluded on Friday, but the court sought the information from the state government by January 11 to understand the compensation structure, before pronouncing its verdict.

Meanwhile, Advocate General Kamal Trivedi, as part of his concluding arguments submitted to the court that people who voluntary provide their consent for land acquisition for the project will be paid compensation by applying the indexation formulae as used by the income tax department. He added after calculating the compensation, the land losers will be provided another 50 per cent additional sum.

Following the submission, the court, however, questioned the state government on what will happen to land owners who do not provide consent for the land acquisition. Answering the court, Trivedi submitted that those who will not give their consent for the acquisition of their land for the mega project shall be paid at par with the market value of land prevalent on the day of notification for land acquisition.

Justifying the state's stand that farmers will not be at loss due to the acquisition of their land, Trivedi argued that only 17.5 metre of land is required in a linear manner and it is not the case that the entire land of farmers is being acquired.

Interestingly, the Gujarat High Court had on November 26 quashed and set-aside the 'poor compensation' awarded to several landowners whose plots were acquired by NHAI for the construction, expansion, and widening of NH 8-E (51) between Bhavnagar and Veraval, and the Vadodara-Mumbai Expressway.

The court had then remanded the matter back to NHAI directing it to re-determine the compensation afresh. The affected persons had demanded that the compensation to be paid to them should be decided based on the revised jantri rates for 2018, and should not be based on the jantri rates of 2011. The same argument has been also adopted by farmers affected by the bullet train project.

Just In Case

The farmers have submitted that they might consider withdrawing the petitions if provided with compensation at market rates and rehabilitation and resettlement benefit.