Unhappy with the verdict of the Gujarat High Court in the petitions challenging the acquisition of their land for the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train project, the farmers and other similarly situated project affected persons on Thursday decided to approach the Supreme Court against the high court’s verdict. Notably, the division bench of Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav on Thursday rejected approximately 60 petitions filed by around 1,000 farmers and other project affected persons seeking higher compensation for their land, which is to be acquired for the mega project, for being devoid of any merit. With the 60 petitions getting rejected, the over 100 petitions on the same issue which are still pending before the court are likely to meet the same fate. Counsel for the farmers Anand Yagnik said he is definitely going to challenge the high court’s verdict before the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Advocate General Kamal Trivedi, who represented the government in the case, held the verdict as a major victory for the state and union government, which is likely to put the project on a fast track. Trivedi also said that 40-45 per cent of the land required for the project in Gujarat has been already acquired with the consent of the landowners and the remaining land will be acquired soon. He also pointed out that the state government has followed all the procedures under the law for carrying out land acquisition. Farmers’ arguments devoid of merit Apparently, the farmers had contended through their petitions that since the bullet train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai involves Maharashtra, Gujarat, and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the appropriate authority to initiate the land acquisition proceedings is the union government and not state. The farmers had also contended that the initiation of land acquisition process without revising and updating the market value of land in question as mandated under the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, is illegal and unconstitutional.Similarly, they had contended that jantri rates, which are used to determine the market rate of land, had not been revised in Gujarat since 2011 and it is obligatory for the state government to revise the same till 2018 before initiating the land acquisition process. Also, it was their contention that the amendments carried out by the Gujarat government in August 2016 were in contravention to the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and defeats the latter’s purpose. The farmers had also contended that the amended Act also violates the Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations issued by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).However, these arguments failed to convince the court, which eventually rejected their petitions. Court accepts arguments of state government Advocate General Kamal Trivedi had argued that the amendments carried out by the state government in the central Land Acquisition Act were legally valid as the same had received the President’s assent. Refuting the submission of farmers on the lack of social impact assessment, Trivedi had said although the state was not bound to carry out a social impact assessment, the same was done by an agency appointed by JICA, which is funding the project. He had submitted to the court that the agency hired by JICA for the purpose—Arcadis—had filed a comprehensive report that meets all the requirements of social impact assessment. THE PROJECT Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is extending a soft loan of Rs 88,000 crore to the Indian government to execute the bullet train project. The project was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in September 2017. The bullet train is supposed to have 12 stations across the 508 km stretch. Around 1,400 hectares of land will be acquired in Gujarat and Maharashtra out of which 1,120 hectares are privately-owned. Out of the 508-km stretch, 350.53 km is passing through Gujarat, 2 km stretch passes through Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and the remaining 155.64 km stretch is in Maharashtra. An elevated corridor having a width of 17.5 meters will be constructed for the project for the entire stretch barring 21 km of underground stretch and 7 km stretch which passes beneath the sea. According to the advocate general, the loan has been provided by JICA at an interest rate of 0.1 per cent and the amount needs to be repaid within a period of 50 years, along with a further grace period of 15 years.

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