Gujarat High Court starts final hearing of pleas against bullet train

The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday started final hearing in the petitions filed by farmers against the proposed acquisition of their land in the bullet train project. The court's division bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav on Wednesday took the cases on priority and conducted a marathon hearing that continued for over two-and-a-half hours.

Senior advocate Mihir Joshi appeared for the farmers and initiated his arguments against the proposed land acquisition for the project. One of the major issues raised by Joshi was the initiation of the land acquisition process without any social impact assessment. He contended that there is no way that the authorities can do away with social impact assessment for the bullet train project.

Joshi said the government was pre-determined to go ahead with the project which is evident by the fact that special purpose vehicle (SPV) was formed and agreements were signed without any social impact assessment. "The government has imposed its decision on the farmers without ascertaining how the project is going to affect the farmers and what is its social cost," he said.

He also contended that the amendments introduced by the state government in union government's Land Acquisition Act providing power to state authorities to exempt projects from social impact assessment defeats the purpose of the central Act. The advocate also briefly pointed out that the purpose behind carrying out the social impact assessment is to understand the stakeholders, take their views into account, and preparation of reports by experts on the benefits of the project vis-a-vis its social cost.

Apart from raking up the issue of social impact assessment, the senior advocate also pointed out the denial of the state government from providing resettlement and rehabilitation to farmers who are likely to lose their land.