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UP govt to approach Supreme Court over hiked land compensation
A day after the Allahabad high court ordered that the government must not burden plot allottees with the amount incurred towards providing an enhanced compensation
A day after the Allahabad high court ordered that the government must not burden plot allottees with the amount incurred towards providing an enhanced compensation to farmers, the Uttar Pradesh government said it will file a plea before the Supreme Court challenging the high court order.
The HC order said allottees, including individuals, universities, colleges and builders including ATS, 3Cs, Supertech need not pay a hiked land compensation to farmers.
Builders, residential plot owners and others had gone to the high court as they did not want to pay an additional ₹4,000 crore against their plots allotted by the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (Yeida).
In August, 2014, a state government committee headed by then cabinet minister Rajendra Chaudhary had recommended that farmers whose land was acquired by Yeida should get a 64.7% hiked land compensation benefits, similar to that given to farmers in Noida and Greater Noida.
The Yeida had directed developers, individual allottees and others to pay the extra ₹4,000 crore towards enhanced land compensation. This meant each allottee had to pay an additional ₹470 per square metre to ₹1,330 per square metre for their land. The Yeida, had so far paid ₹2,600 crore to farmers.
The Allahabad high court on Thursday said the state government or the development authorities cannot recover increased compensation to farmers (whose land was acquired) from the allottees without a prior agreement with the allottees in this regard.
“Any rights, on the basis of a concluded or final contract or lease, which have been crystallised in favour of any party cannot be taken away by framing a policy on some later date. A policy so framed would be prospective in nature and cannot affect the contracts already finalised. Any such policy which is unilaterally framed disturbing the rights which have accrued to a party would clearly be violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution,” the petitioners had contended.
“The UP government has decided to file a plea before the Supreme Court because we have paid ₹2,600 crore already to farmers as per the committees’ decision,” Arun Vir Singh, chief executive officer, Yeida, said.
There are at least 21,000 residential plot allottees, who have gone on to build universities and housing projects on the land allotted. Some of them paid the hiked land compensation as well. Around 170 individual plot allottees had filed the petition before the high court seeking relief from the hiked land compensation.
“Paying the hiked land compensation is not feasible because the real estate sector has been in a slump for past many years. Buyers are also reluctant to pay the hiked land compensation,” RK Arora, president (UP chapter) National Real Estate Development Council, who has a realty project in Yamuna Expressway, said.
“We had bought the plots in 2009 and many are yet to get possession. The Yeida should not recover hiked land compensation from plot owners as it is yet to provide even basic facilities in areas such as sectors 18 and 20, where these plots are located. The recovery of hiked land compensation is arbitrary and unjust,” Alok Singh, a plot owner said.
