The government has been on an acquisition spree of agricultural land since the economy opened two decades ago, seriously affecting basic food security and driving the “small farmer” to suicide, the Supreme Court has said.
In the “name of planned development or industrial growth” an 1894 law has become the statutory route for “massive land acquisition” of prime farmlands in the past two decades, said a 25-page judgment delivered by Justice G S Singhvi on November 23.
The judgment quoted the fifth and final report of the M S Swaminathan-led National Commission For Farmers to slam the acquisition of agricultural land with no thought for the availability of food for the future in a country where “60 per cent of the population still depend on agriculture and where people living below poverty line are finding it difficult to survive”.
Justice Singhvi quoted the “words of wisdom” spoken by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru that “everything else can wait, but not agriculture” in this context.
The judgment also highlighted the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendation against diversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The court said both Nehru’s words and the Commission report seems to have become “irrelevant” for the government now.
“These words of wisdom appear to have become irrelevant for the state apparatus which has used the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 in the last two decades for massive acquisition of agricultural land in different parts of the country, which has not only adversely impacted the farmers, but also generated huge litigation which consumes substantial time of the courts,” observed the Bench, also comprising Justice S J Mukhopadhyay.
Krishnadas Rajagopal (Food security hit by land acquisition: SC)Posted: Mon Nov 28 2011, 02:07 hrsNew Delhi:
