Violation Of The Consent Requirement Under The Right To Fair Compensation And Transparency In Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation And Resettlement Act, 2013: A Critical Analysis
- IJLLR Journal
- 8 hours ago
- 1 min read
Ms. Banveer Kaur Jhinger, Assistant Professor (Law), University Institute of Law, Panjab University Regional Centre, Ludhiana
Research Scholar, Department of Laws, Panjab University, Chandigarh
ABSTRACT
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (hereinafter 'LARR Act' or 'the Act') represented a transformational shift in India's land acquisition regime by incorporating a statutory consent requirement a provision conspicuously absent from its colonial predecessor, the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The consent clauses under Sections 2(2)(b) and 2(3)(b) of the Act mandate the consent of seventy to eighty percent of project-affected families before land can be acquired for private and public-private partnership (PPP) projects. Despite this legislative mandate, empirical evidence drawn from field studies, governmental data, judicial records, and secondary scholarly literature reveals persistent and systemic violations of the consent requirement across Indian states. The present paper critically examines these violations through doctrinal, empirical, and comparative lenses. It analyses the statutory framework, traces the empirical record of non-compliance, examines judicial responses, and evaluates the structural, political, and administrative factors that render the consent mandate largely ineffective in practice. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening consent mechanisms to fulfil the transformative promise of the 2013 Act.
Keywords: LARR Act 2013, consent requirement, land acquisition, eminent domain, informed consent, social impact assessment, displacement, rehabilitation.
