Legislating for Justice: The Making of the 2013 Land Acquisition Law

Description

Land ownership in India has always been a risky proposition. The Land Acquisition Act of 1894 endowed the State with unfettered powers of acquisition. Furthermore, the refusal of the Parliament to recognize the right to own property as a fundamental one had emboldened the State to stake claim on any land it saw fit. However, in the years 2012–2014, the Government of India embarked on an ambitious exercise to rewrite the entire law on land acquisition from scratch. This process saw a radical polarization of public opinion—those who saw acquisition as a necessary tool for India’s development and those who were strongly opposed to an archaic relic that defied the rule of law. This book attempts to explain the rationale behind each and every provision of The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, presented by the then Minister for Rural Development and his Principle Aide. The book is a first-hand account of the challenges faced and the factors that drove the decisions in regulating the State’s approach to a resource that is arguably the most important in a land-deficit people-surplus nation.