Compensate Gurgaon farmers at current rates, court tells builders

Gurgaon, May 14 (IANS) The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed builders to compensate Gurgaon farmers on current circle rates for buying over 6oo acres of land, a petitioner said Wednesday.

The court has directed seven builders to compensate farmers from Manesar, Nakhrola and Naurangpur villages according to current circle rates.

"The court of double bench comprising Justice Suryakant has ordered the builders to pay farmers according to circle rates of their areas concerned. The court passed the order Tuesday," Omprakash Yadav, petitioner in the case, told IANS.

"The court has put a permanent stay on further hearing of the case till the orders are not implemented," Yadav said.

The court also ordered the builders to pay back the amount of house buyers (who now did not want to buy) in the affected areas along with an interest rate of 18 percent per annum.

The private builders purchased a total of 688 acres of land from the above-mentioned villages after state government's Haryana State Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) issued notices to the farmers under sections 4, 6 and 9 for acquiring their agricultural lands for essential public needs.

Scared farmers sold their lands to the builders but the HSIIDC withdrew the notices after the private players purchased the land.

The first notice under section 4 was issued Aug 27, 2004. The notice under section 6 was issued April 25, 2005.

Section 9 (called award -- a farmer has to surrender his land to government whether he wishes or not, the amount of the land is forcefully deposited in bank account of land owner concerned) was implemented Aug 2, 2007.

Private builders started buying the land at the rate of Rs.25 lakh per acre.

"The rates were hiked from Rs.25 lakh to Rs.1.5 crore per acre between July 25 and Aug 5, 2007. The court took notice of this raise and ordered to compensate the farmers on current circle rates," Yadav added.

"It was all the conspiracy and deal between the Haryana government and the private players to grab land from farmers and we challenged it in the high court," Yadav added.

The current circle rate of agriculture land in Manesar is Rs.1.90 crore per acre, while it is Rs.30,000 per square metre in residential zone.