AHMEDABAD: The Gujarat government defended its land acquisition process for the ambitious bullet train project and termed the protesting farmers’ affidavits as “incomplete”, “stereotypical” and filed with a view “to hype the issue” before the Gujarat high court.The government highlighted inadequacies in 849 affidavits filed by people protesting land acquisition for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail project.Of these, 191 affidavits were by those who will not lose any land. There were also 99 duplicate affidavits. Only 521 affidavits were filed by affected persons, the government said.Pointing out to the inadequacies in the affidavits, the government stated that most of them were not notarized.A few persons bought stamp papers in bulk and stereotypical content was printed with blanks left.There were affidavits with same content but were sworn by different people. Fathers and sons and husbands and wives filed different affidavits for the same land parcel. There were also affidavits for which stamp paper was bought by the notary.The government told the HC that these affidavits “do not inspire confidence and were filed with a view to hype the whole issue”.The government reiterated that most people have volunteered their land for the project and there are not “several hundred” farmers affected by the project. People are not aggrieved as the HC has been told over the implementation of the 2013 land acquisition law.It also claimed that using the 2011 jantri rates would fetch farmers more money. The government also rebutted claims that JICA guidelines to conform with environmental standards were not adhered to.

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