Lucknow, Sep 28 The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has expressed strong dissatisfaction over the state machinery's failure to fully compensate a landowner whose family land was acquired 65 years ago in 1959.
The court has summoned Lucknow’s additional district magistrate (land acquisition) and chief treasury officer to appear personally on October 6 and explain why action should not be initiated against them for non-compliance with the orders passed by the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Authority (LARA).
A bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Manjive Shukla on Monday passed the order on a petition filed by the landowner, Rajkumar Shailendra Singh.
The court noted that the original land acquisition proceedings dated back to 1959, while execution proceedings for recovery of compensation had been pending since 2019. Despite this, the petitioner was yet to receive the full compensation due to him.
The court was told that the collector passed the original award on October 14, 1959. The reference court subsequently passed its award on September 6, 1996. The state filed a first appeal against the award in 2007, which was dismissed on September 9, 2019.
Despite the litigation having concluded, the petitioner has so far received only Rs 11.72 lakh as compensation.
According to LARA, Rs 38.25 lakh was payable to the petitioner as of August 2025. The petitioner’s counsel, Amit Jaiswal, submitted that interest at 15 per cent per annum was also payable on the outstanding amount.
The bench observed that several orders passed by LARA had not been complied with.
It directed the ADM (land acquisition) and the chief treasury officer to remain present on October 6 and explain the reasons for non-compliance and why action should not be taken against them.
The court has fixed October 6 as the next date of hearing.
