Thinking outside the box

After the exhaustive critique of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 2007 (henceforward referred to as the Land Bill), by K.B. Saxena, ¹ one only needs to recount his criticism to put the arguments of this paper into perspective. As the Land Bill is extremely brief, the criticisms levelled at it are as much about its contents as its omissions. To critique the Land Bill, one has to read the original 1894 Land Acquisition Act (henceforth, the Land Act), as well as the much more exhaustive 1984 Amending Act. The underlying justification of the Land Act was the age-old concept of eminent domain. It still underpins all legislation on land acquisition. We have to bear this salient fact in mind at all times.