Jaipur: A division bench of Rajasthan high court has dismissed a long-pending appeal filed by Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) in a land acquisition dispute and directed the authorities to allot a 9,000 square metre plot at Airport Plaza in Jaipur to Sai Darshan Hotels.The division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Justice Sangeeta Sharma delivered the judgment on March 16.The case dates back to 1969 when land in Jaipur’s Chainpura area was acquired by the state govt. While possession of the land was taken in the early 1980s, the court found that compensation was never actually paid to the original landowners. Even the enhanced compensation ordered later in 1990 was not paid or deposited.Sai Darshan Hotels later acquired rights over the land in 2003 and applied under a state govt policy that allows landowners to receive 15% developed land instead of monetary compensation, provided they withdraw pending legal cases. Following this policy, the govt in May 2003 ordered allotment of a 9,000 square metre plot at Airport Plaza in Jaipur to the company. However, the govt later kept this allotment on hold.Challenging this, the company approached the high court, and in 2009 a single judge ruled in its favour, setting aside the decision to keep the allotment in abeyance.However, JDA filed an appeal against this order in 2010, arguing that the allotment was unjustified and alleging irregularities in the govt’s decision. It also claimed that such allotment would cause loss as the land had become highly valuable.Counsel for JDA, Amit Kuri, argued that the allotment was unjustified and alleged irregularities in the earlier govt decision. However, the court observed that the respondent had already withdrawn several pending cases in compliance with the govt’s directions and that the state’s policy on granting developed land in such situations had been upheld earlier by the Supreme Court.The high court, however, rejected all the arguments of JDA.Observing that land was taken without proper compensation, the bench held that the “beneficiaries must not be left without relief”.The court finally dismissed JDA’s appeal and directed it to implement the 2003 orders and allot the 9,000 sq metre plot to Sai Darshan Hotels without delay.
