The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
The Supreme Court has struck down the 997 acres of land acquired in Singur meant for the Tata car project.
The then Left Front government had intended through this project to develop industry and thereby create jobs in the state.
However, the acquisition process had to be undertaken under the 1894 Land Acquisition Act, which was the only legal instrument available at that time. This was an Act which did not protect the interests of the farmers adequately. On land acquisition, the CPI(M) had earlier acknowledged in its Central Committee review report of the 2011 assembly elections that “The administrative and political mistakes in this regard proved costly”.
After the project was abandoned the TMC government brought a Bill in the assembly to return land to those who had refused to take the compensation. The CPI(M) had said that now the land should be returned to all the erstwhile owners. It had stated that there should be no discrimination between those who had accepted the compensation and those who did not.
Now the Supreme Court judgment has decreed that the land acquired should be returned to all the original owners along with the compensation due to them.
For decades the CPI(M) was demanding that the 1894 anachronistic law should be replaced by providing adequate security to the farmers. Finally, in 2013 The Right to Fair Compensation & Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act was adopted by the parliament. The CPI(M) continues its efforts to improve this Act further in the interests of the farmers. The current BJP-led Central Government on the contrary sought to dilute this Act through ordinances and continues to undermine this Act. The CPI(M) shall oppose all efforts to dilute this Act and is opposed to such dilution being currently undertaken by many state governments.