The State government on Wednesday filed an appeal before a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court against a single judge’s interim order directing to defer the steps for survey for the SilverLine project on the property of certain petitioners..The single judge, while issuing the order on a few petitions challenging the survey of land,had observed that various aspects involved in these cases were of grave importance and amplitude, one among them, namely, as to the manner in which a survey was being presently conducted by the instrumentalities of the government.
Going by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, action for acquisition will have to follow the mandatory statutory scheme.As the detailed project report (DPR) was prepared without a physical survey, but only on the basis of an aerial survey, it was incumbent upon the government to explain their actions, within the framework of the statutory formalities, the single judge had said.The single judge had observed that since the State now said the DPR had already beenprepared and that an ‘In principle’ approval has been given by theRailway Board to them the court failed to understand why a survey under the ‘Survey andBoundaries Act’ was now being conducted in this manner.The appeal pointed out that the government had submitted before the single judge that the present survey was being conducted only for the purpose of a social impact assessment study. Therefore, provisions of the Fair Compensation Act could not be resorted to for demarcating the property. However, the single judge ordered deferring the steps for conducting the survey of the land.
