Gurgaon: 15 years later, HC relief to family whose land was taken by govt

For 45-year-old Sunil Dutt, a farmer in Gurgaon’s Islampur village, and his family, 2019 will be different from the last 15 years. In November 2003, the land on which his family lives was acquired by the Haryana government. And it was only in December 2018 that the Punjab and Haryana High Court got the “appropriate authority to release the land”.

“My family has been residing in this village for generations. We found out about the acquisition through newspapers in 2003, following which a notice reached us,” said Satbir, Dutt’s uncle.

“Without the court’s directions, our family would have been left with nowhere to go. This is the only land we own, and the compensation was only Rs 20-25 lakh,” he said.

The 2003 notification was issued under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, stating that the government was acquiring “the land of village Islampur” for “development and utilisation as residential, commercial and institutional Sector 48, Gurgaon”.

Dutt’s plot, however, was included in the part of land that, although acquired for Sector 48, was later found to “fall in Sector 33, Gurgaon, as per layout plan”.

Some landowners challenged the acquisition, and a High Court order dated October 21, 2013 directed respondents to “re-determine the claim for release of land of the petitioners”.

But the land of some of the petitioners was not released despite a “demand notice” being sent to authorities. So, the matter was taken up in the High Court once again, with an order dated May 27, 2016, being issued that directed a decision be made on the demand notice. When some of the land was not released despite this, three petitioners, including Dutt, filed a contempt petition in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana.

“The respondents in the case had passed a letter of intent and subjected the release of the land to certain conditions, but they did not release the land despite these conditions being fulfilled,” said Shailendra Jain, a senior advocate representing the petitioners.

The December 3 order, as a result, came as a great relief for the petitioners. It directed “the appropriate authority to release the land in question within two weeks”.

Uday Bhan Singh, a 60-year- old retired Navy officer who is one of the other petitioners, said the case was one of “discrimination”. “Several other private individuals also own land in Islampur that was similarly under contention. But because they are more powerful, their land was released and ours was not. We have recovered our plots but this case has been a strain on our finances,” said Singh, adding: “It is a landlocked plot so I have to first fight to get a road made there. Only after that can I take a call on how to utilise it,” he said.