Proposed amendments to the Land Acquisition Act

The Land Acquisition Act, 1894, governs the acquisition of private land for any purpose by government or private entities. Practical experience shows that the process of land acquisition is beset with uncertain timelines, administrative holdups, undue delay in awarding compensation and lack of fair land valuations.

These issues are a major concern for project developers; to address them, the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2009, was laid before the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament), where it was passed. However, it remains pending with the Rajya Sabha (upper house of parliament) and is therefore not yet on the statute books.

Acquisition for public purposes

Once the bill is passed the government will be authorized to acquire land only for “public purposes”, defined to include setting up any project useful to the general public for which a project developer has already purchased 70% of the land required. The definition of public purpose also covers infrastructure projects such as those relating to electricity, roads, highways, bridges, airports, railways and mining.

Akshay Jaitly is a partner at Trilegal in Delhi where Shailendra Kumar Singh is a senior associate and Anuja Tiwari is an associate. The firm has offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad and has over 100 lawyers, some of whom have experience with law firms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.