Tuesday, May 24, 2016

30 May 2016: Understanding Land Acquisition Disputes in India

Namita Wahi
Pallav Shukla and
Ankit Bhatia
Centre for Policy Research(CPR)

Abstract:
The law and practice of land acquisition has historically been a hugely contentious issue in India. The British colonial state enacted a number of laws, the most important of which was the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, to facilitate the state's takeover of land pursuant to its power of eminent domain. This law was in force for a 119 years, until its repeal and replacement by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (the “LARR Act, 2013”). On 31 December, 2014, the Union government notified the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement(Amendment) Ordinance, 2014 (the “LARR Ordinance, 2014”), which substantially amended the provisions of the LARR Act, 2013. The LARR Ordinance, 2014 was re-promulgated twice but a bill to replace the Ordinance, ("the LARR Amendment Bill, 2015") was not passed into law. The government's inability to garner parliamentary support to pass the LARR Amendment Bill, 2015, into a country wide law, testifies to the intense and continued political contestation regarding this subject. 

Despite its persistent and polarising nature, the debate on land acquisition has been marked by a lack of systematic and comprehensive data in support of particular positions. Existing studies on land acquisition have tended to focus on particular issues, like compensation, or on particular conflicts, or have been otherwise limited in terms of geography and time.  In this study, the Land Rights Initiative team will present findings from a systematic study of all cases on land acquisition decided by the Supreme Court of India from 1950 to 2015. The LRI team analysed these cases along various metrics, such as public purpose, procedure, compensation, invocation of the urgency clause, pendency of claims, and tracked trends with respect to distribution of conflicts across geography and time, and central and state laws. This is the first comprehensive country wide study of land acquisition disputes since India's independence. In this seminar, the LRI team will present our findings from this study and describe questions for future research. 

Date: May 30, 2016
Time: 09:00 A.M.

Venue:
Conference Room 2
India International Centre,
Max Mueller Marg,
New Delhi - 110003(INDIA)

Location:

View Larger Map

Note:
Registration is mandatory. To register, please click here

No comments:

Post a Comment