Giving major relief to farmers in Gurgaon, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday directed builders to compensate them on current circle rates for buying over 600 acres of land. The court directed seven builders to compensate farmers from Manesar, Nakhrola and Naurangpur villages according to current circle rates in the regions.
‘The court ordered the builders to pay farmers according to circle rates of their areas concerned. The court passed the order on Tuesday,’ said Omprakash Yadav, petitioner in the case. The court has put a permanent stay on further hearing of the case till the orders are implemented. The court also ordered the builders to pay back the amount of house buyers (who now want to withdraw) 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 Manesar, Nakhrola and Naurangpur villagers after state government’s Haryana State Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation 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 on 27 August 2004. The notice under section 6 was issued on 25 April 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 the account of land owner) was implemented on 2 August 2007.