Court seals five rooms of Gurugram land acquisition office over 16-year compensation delay

In 2010, a district court raised compensation for Dhanwati’s family’s half-acre plot from ₹50 lakh to ₹1.2 crore per acre, and the additional amount was never paid to her

Five rooms of the land acquisition officer’s (LAO) office in Sector 14 were sealed on Wednesday on the orders of a district court over a 16-year delay in paying enhanced compensation to a 61-year-old woman whose land was acquired for the construction of the Dwarka Expressway.

The dispute concerns half an acre of land belonging to Dhanwati’s family, for which compensation was initially fixed at ₹50 lakh per acre. In 2010, a district court increased the amount to ₹1.2 crore per acre while hearing a batch of petitions seeking enhanced compensation.

After waiting nine years for the enhanced amount, Dhanwati filed an execution petition in 2019 to enforce the court’s order. However, the authorities failed to clear the outstanding compensation despite 37 hearings on her petition.

On September 30, the court of additional district judge Sudeep Goel issued a warrant for attachment of the land acquisition office on a request by Dhanwati’s counsel. The warrant was executed on Wednesday, when five rooms housing Gurugram district’s land records were sealed at the office, located in the Haryana Shahri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) building.

Following the sealing, HSVP and the land acquisition office moved an application seeking recall of the attachment order. Counsel Jagbir Sahrawat and Jai Bakshi, appearing for the two offices, filed the application before Goel.

During Thursday’s hearing, Dhanwati’s counsel, Dharshan Sharma, sought time to file a reply. The court adjourned the matter to Friday for further arguments and consideration of the pending payment before deciding whether to lift the seal.

“The execution petition pertains to 2019 and despite that, the LAC has not made calculations and HSVP has not made any effort to get it done or to ensure speedy payment. If things continue like this, this court will be compelled to proceed against the properties of the State of Haryana being a party to the present execution petition, which may put the district administration in an awkward situation,” the court observed in its order.

The court also asked the Gurugram deputy commissioner to look into the matter and ensure that all pending compensation calculations were completed by the land acquisition office within a stipulated period and forwarded to HSVP so that Dhanwati could receive her dues.

A senior land acquisition official said an application had been filed seeking removal of the seal. “A file regarding this compensation was sent to HSVP for approval, but a decision is pending. We will ensure that the matter is resolved at the earliest,” he said.

An HSVP official said instructions had been issued to reconstruct the file relating to the compensation. “The file is being reconstructed and soon the matter will be resolved,” he said.