Hyderabad High Court stays AP capital land acquisition

Hyderabad: The AP government has put on hold the land acquisition process in the Capital Region Development Authority region for two weeks. Additional advocate general of AP Dammalapati Srinivas, on Thursday, submitted before the Hyderabad High Court that the government was not going to issue any statutory notification for acquiring lands immediately. Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao was hearing a petition by Abhista Reality and Ventures Private Limited and others, challenging the GO No 166, issued by the AP government on May 14 exempting the Capital City Development Project from the rigors of Social Impact Assessment and avoidance of multi crop lands from land acquisition.

The petitioner counsel contended that the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, in the original form, mandated that before acquiring land from citizens, a social impact assessment had to be made and unless it was unavoidable, multi crop lands shall not be acquired. The judge directed the government to file a counter affidavit clarifying the issues.