Will rehabilitate landless, Telangana govt tells HC

HYDERABAD: Stressing that it was not a "marwari company", the Telangana government on Friday told the Hyderabad high court that it would rehabilitate hundreds of landless labourers and artisans while acquiring land and urged the court to revive its GO Ms No 123. The GO paves way for acquiring land through direct purchase from farmers.
"We are not a marwari company.We are an elected government and we are accountable to the people. We are acquiring 12,600 acres in these villages. We are buying out villages and we have decided to rehabilitate all those who are affected even though they have no land to lose," Telangana advocate general K Ramakrishna Reddy told a bench of acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice U Durga Prasad Rao.
The comment, however, may not go down well with the 3.5 lakh strong marwari community living in the city. They are mostly into industries such as cement, textile and oil for decades.
The state had moved an urgent appeal against an order of a single judge who quashed GO 123, branding it as one that converted the state into a property dealer that has no concern for the landless. The single judge had quashed it mainly on the ground that the state cannot bypass the central Land Acquisition Act, 2013, particularly when the GO deletes the rehabilitation and resettlement of the landless, which was guaranteed by the central act.
The bench, which heard the arguments of the AG at length, sought to know as to how it would rehabilitate the affected landless families.
"We will pay Rs 50,000 per family as was envisaged in the central act," the AG said.
But the counsel for the landless labourers intervened and said that the central act says the state has to pay Rs 5 lakh per family. "They are now talking about rehabilitating the poor. Earlier, they did not bother about them. They behaved as if it was a deal between the buyer (government) and the seller (land owner). The counter filed by the state before the single judge did not even mention about the woes of the landless whose livelihoods are also wiped out on account of the massive land acquisition. This is precisely the reason why the central act made it mandatory for the authorities to take care of the resettlement and rehabilitation of the poor and artisans," the counsel said.
The bench too told the state that it had to explain as to how it would justify its action in treating it as a mere issue between a buyer and a seller.
The Telangana AG told the bench that theirs was a welfare state that was answerable to the people. "We are giving better price to the farmers through direct purchase and that is the reason why land owners are preferring GO 123 than the central act," he added. "Petitioners are not the sole champions of the landless, we will also take care of such people," he added.
The bench, however, told the state to frame its rehabilitation policy and convey the same to the court through an affidavit. When the AG urged the court to allow them to go ahead with purchasing land and registration of the already-purchased land, the petitioner counsel objected. "Once land goes out of the hands of the farmers, he will lose interest in farming, which will adversely affect the agricultural labourers of that village," he said.
The bench posted the case to Monday for further hearing and also for interim orders.