65 years on, Bombay HC orders state to allot land to family displaced by Koyna dam

The bench warned that the secretary of the revenue department would be held personally responsible if the state government failed to comply with the order

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court has come to the rescue of a family whose land was taken over for the construction of the Koyna dam in Satara in 1960 but weren’t allotted alternate plots as promised for their rehabilitation.

Mumbai, India - Aug. 28, 2015 : Bombay High Court : ( Photo by Bhushan Koyande )

After noting that the allotment of 1.6 hectares of land in Panvel in November 2017 was cancelled without citing any cogent reasons, a division bench of justices MS Sonak and Jitendra Jain on Friday directed the Maharashtra government to allot alternate plots in six months to the two sons and two daughters of Waman Ganpatrao Kadam. The siblings currently reside in Koyna Velhi, a camp of families displaced due to the dam construction in the Satara district.

The bench warned that the secretary of the revenue department would be held personally responsible if the state government failed to comply with the order. It directed the secretary to file a compliance report by August 30.

The family had approached the high court last year, stating that Waman Kadam owned 13.37 hectares of agricultural land in Velhe village of the Jawli tehsil in Satara. According to the petition, filed through advocate Poonam Bodke Patil, the state government acquired all of Kadam’s land in January 1960 and did not provide any compensation or allot alternate land in lieu of the acquisition.

The petition said that 1.6 hectares of land was eventually allotted to the Kadam family at Pendhar in Panvel tehsil in November 2017, following a policy decision taken by the state government to rehabilitate the displaced families. However, in January 2019, the allotment order was abruptly cancelled, with the state government claiming that the allotted land was uneven, the area was not contiguous, and there were some constructions on it, the petition added.

In 2020, the family challenged the January 2019 order by filing a writ petition, which was disposed of later that year to decide the matter afresh after hearing the affected family. However, in August 2022, a similar order was issued, citing some new grounds, although the family’s entitlement to alternate land under the state policy was not disputed.

The bench disapproved of the high-handed approach of government officers, observing that “despite no disputes regarding the petitioners’ eligibility and entitlement, bureaucratic delays and red tape have conspired to deny justice to the petitioners”.

The bench said that the land acquisition proceedings and the rehabilitation of the affected families must be concluded expeditiously to protect individuals’ constitutional right to property. However, in this case, the state government breached these principles laid down by the Supreme Court, the bench added.

“To date, there is no final decision on the choice of the lands to be allotted to the petitioners,” said the judges. “The entire attempt is to postpone the matters or require the petitioners to run from pillar to post, from committee to committee, or authority to authority, even though no doubts are raised about petitioners’ eligibility and entitlement for rehabilitation. This cannot be allowed to go on,” the bench said.