Judge opts out,new bench to hear Noida land cases

Acquisition of nearly 3,500 hectares of land by Noida Authority and Greater Noida Authority in nearly 20 villages under the urgency clause was to be taken up on Wednesday by the three-judge bench of justices R K Agrawal,Ashok Bhushan and V K Shukla.

As the bench sat down to begin proceedings,Justice Agrawal recused himself because his son Rahul Agrawal was representing one of the builders in the case.

The builders had filed a petition seeking impleadment as a party in the case. But the court had kept their petition pending which too was to be decided by the three-judge bench. The bench was to also examine a similar petition filed by the flat buyers’ association.

Earlier,on August 26,a division bench headed by Justice Amitava Lala referred all cases pertaining to land acquisition in Noida and Greater Noida to a larger bench after it was brought to the court’s notice that there were two conflicting judgments by different benches of the same High Court on the issue of land acquisition in Patwari village.

While one bench had in 2008 upheld land acquisition by the government,another bench this year cancelled acquisition of 589 hectares of land. The division bench had clubbed all petitions of the same nature and referred it to the larger bench. Since then,residents of more than half-a-dozen villages have approached the High Court,challenging land acquisition by the government under the urgency clause.