High Court dismisses PIL challenging Vizag land pooling scheme

The Public interest litigation (PIL) against the government's land pooling scheme in Visakhapatnam was dismissed by the high court on Friday.

The court clarified that the Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority (VMRDA) can pool lands from those who voluntarily consented to the scheme, but not from those who did not agree to.

Bhusekharana Land Pooling Taithu Kooli Nirvasitula Sankshema Sangam filed the PIL to challenge the VMRDA's land pooling notification from 2020. They claimed that the government announced the scheme to get around the amended Land Acquisition Act, which requires farmers to be compensated.

The government claims that it is only taking land from those who are willing to join the land pooling scheme. While over 6,500 acres of land will be acquired to provide housing sites for nearly 1.85 million poor people, only about 4,500 acres have been approved, and only that amount of land has been purchased.

After hearing the arguments, a bench led by Chief Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice M Satyanarayana Murthy concluded that the petitioners lacked standing to file a PIL on the matter. Even if some of the petitioners are aggrieved, the court said that they can file an independent petition. The high court dismissed the PIL and allowed VMRDA to continue with its scheme, giving affected people the right to file an independent petition with the court.

The VMRDA is Visakhapatnam's urban planning agency in Andhra Pradesh, India. The existing Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority was expanded to form it.

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