After the Allahabad high court rejected the review petition of villagers in Noida Extension, a small section of farmers unhappy with the order went on a rampage targeting projects of several builders. Other farmers were, however, happy that the Allahabad high court had turned down the plea made by the Greater Noida Authority in its review petition to not dole out hiked compensation and developed plots to non-ancestral lands of villagers.
Soon after news of the order reached Noida Extension, some agitated farmers took to the streets and targeted under-construction properties of developers. They blocked traffic at the Gol Chakkar in Noida Extension for a few hours. The angry crowd was dispersed following police intervention. “After getting news about farmers agitating in the region, we reached the spot and our officials managed to quell the agitation,” said SP (Rural), Ashok
Kumar. The police informed that no case has been filed into the incident of violence. “We are likely to register a case into the matter,” Kumar added.
Farmers’ counsel, Pankaj Dubey, informed that after facing rejection from the high court, where they had sought land to be given back to farmers, they would now challenge the October 21 verdict in the Supreme Court.
Other sections of farmers have expressed happiness over the fact that the plea made by Greater Noida Authority, vide its review petition, in which it had expressed its inability to pay hiked compensation and developed plots to all farmers has been turned down. The Authority had asked for relief from the high court in granting it order to pay compensation and plots only to those farmers who had ‘ancestral lands’ in the region as against ‘non-ancestral lands’ belonging to those who are not originally from the region but own land in different villages.
“The Authority had been trying to make a difference between ancestral and non-ancestral land in the region in giving compensation to farmers,” said Ranveer Pradhan, president of a farmers’ organization, Grameen Panchayat Morcha. “Not only was the Authority shy of giving any developed plots in lieu of acquiring ‘non-ancestral’ lands, they had also been paying 10% less compensation to owners of such lands. It is a matter of great satisfaction that farmers across the board are eligible to get 64% hiked compensation and 10% developed plots now that the high court has upheld its original order delivered on October 21,” said Pradhan.
The Grameen Panchayat Morcha said that there is a vast amount of land in the Noida Extension region which the Authority had classified as ‘non-ancestral’.
