Ravi Kant, Tata Motors managing director, wrote back to the state government today: “We have noted your clarification that the government will maintain the integrated nature of the auto-cluster consisting of the mother plant and the vendor park. The Government should not take any step in future which will disturb the arrangement agreed between us earlier. We must be clearly told about (any) future agreement, understanding or commitment which will go contrary to the agreement and result in not honouring your commitment (to us).”

Despite Sen’s assurance, local Trinamool MLA Rabindranath Bhattacharya, a member of the committee set up to implement the Sunday agreement, said: “We have placed a demand for 300 acres within the project area.”

Legal experts and officers engaged in the land acquisition process have told The Indian Express that meeting this demand is difficult, if not impossible. Consider these:

• Said Additional District Magistrate, Hooghly, Liyaqat Ali, involved in the Singur land acquisition: “Alternative land outside the project area can be given but the return of acquired land to original landowners is impossible.”

• Officials who acquired land for the Nano factory said that of the 997.11 acres of the total project area, only 120 acres are vacant today. “Construction work has begun on at least 850 acres inside the plant,” said a senior officer.

• Contrary to the Trinamool’s claim that compensation for 305 acres was not accepted by 2,251 farmers, official estimates say that for 205 acres, “part compensation” was made. There are plots for which there are several claimants, some have taken compensation, others have not. Said Ali: “How can we identify such plots as plots of unwilling farmers since part payment has been made? Only around 100 acres are clean plots of unwilling farmers inside the project area.”

• Experts cite a Supreme Court order in a 1997 case — state of Kerala vs M Bhaskaran Pillai — in which the court ruled that if land is acquired for a public purpose, “after the public purpose was achieved, the rest of the land could be used for any other public purpose.” And if there’s no other public purpose for which the land is needed, “instead of disposal by way of sale to the erstwhile owner, the land should be put to public auction and the amount fetched in the auction can be better utilised for public purpose envisaged in the directive principles in the Constitution.”

• In another case, in 2005, the SC ruled that once land is acquired, it vests with the government and unutilised land cannot be re-conveyed or re-assigned to the erstwhile owner.

When asked about these legal problems, Land and Land Reforms Minister Abdul Rezzak Mollah said: “There are ways to return land but the farmers will not get their old land. The land to be provided for unwilling farmers will not be transferable.” A clause, the government hopes, will deter farmers and make it easier for them to accept alternatives like the pension scheme and allotment of shop space.