Whose Land Is It Anyway? Property,Law and Rights in the Land Acquisition Question in India

Abstract

The question of land acquisition in India hinges on the nature of land as property, the nature of collective land rights, the nature of individual property rights on land and the nature of the state as expropriator for specific collectivities or benefactor for public good. Defining public use or common good has historically been one of the more protracted contestations between the state and individual/communal ownership of land. Rule-making for acquisition of land and appropriate compensation marks a second contestation, between ‘law’ and ‘justice’, as evidenced both in the colonial law of 1894, and subsequent amendments and legal enactments after independence.

Focusing on two of the most crucial aspects of land acquisition law—ownership and consent, and compensation against acquisition—this article explores how the idea of public good for common purpose has been historically constituted within legislative and juridical frameworks, and how the notion of compensation is closely connected to the contested definition of public good and the definition of ‘community rights’. In probing these issues, I seek to arrive at an understanding of the implications of reciprocal rights and obligations that mutually constitute society and state in India.