Employment in lieu of acquired land cannot be granted to a person approaching Court after inordinate delay

Petitioner-land owner has approached Jharkhand High Court after a lapse of about 23 years, without any reasonable explanation for such delay in approaching Court. Petitioner was agitated before the writ Court, by submitting that since the land of area 7.63 acres has been acquired, as such as per the R and R Policy three employments were to be given but no such employment has been given.

At the time of acquisition, the petitioner was already in service of BCCL and his dependents, being minors, were not eligible to get employment during the relevant time when the acquisition took place. Failure of the petitioner to produce R and R Policy before Court, which stipulates about employment to the dependents of land losers against the acquisition of every two acres of land. The land was acquired in the year 1989-90 but no such claim for employment has been made at that point of time.

There is a limit to the time which can be considered reasonable for making representations and if the Government had turned down one representation the making of another representation on similar lines will not explain the delay. In absence of any proper explanation regarding the inordinate delay caused to approach the Court, employment instead of acquired land cannot be granted to any such person.

Appearing Counsel/s: Rajiv Kumar Shekhar, Arpan Mishra, Indrajit Sinha