Noida sec 75, 120 construction stayed

Projects of at least 6 builders in Noida hit, petition says land wasn't formally acquired from farmers.

The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday stayed construction of multi-storey residential projects of nearly half a dozen private developers in Sector 75 and Sector 120 of Noida.

The court took the decision while hearing of a petition, which alleged that the Noida Authority allotted land to private builders without formally acquiring the plots from farmers.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Amitava Lala and Justice P K S Baghel gave two weeks to the respondents to file their replies. The matter will come up for hearing after three weeks.

The bench said the allegations in the petition raised the question whether any public authority has the power to allot land to a third party without acquiring it from the land owner.

The petition filed by Kalu, a farmer of Sarsabad village, through counsels Shiv Kant Tripathi and Amrita Rai, said a notification under Section 4 (indicating the intention of the Authority concerned to acquire land) of the Land Acquisition Act for 120 hectares in Sector 75 and Sector 120 was issued on April 7 last year.

The land concerned falls within Sarsabad village.

Nearly 600,000 square metres of land, which is roughly half the total area for which the notification was issued, was allotted to builders between 2010 and 2012 without completing the acquisition process, the petition alleged.

"Our contention is that 17 months after the notice under Section 4 was issued, the acquisition process has not moved forward. In accordance with the norms, the notice under Section 6 (pertaining to finalising the plots to be acquired) of the Act should have been issued within a year. Our objection is that land could not be allotted to private builders before it was acquired from farmers," Mishra said.

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