Kedar Nath Yadav v. State of West Bengal: The Singur Judgment (2016)

Singur is the acquisition that changed Indian land law: about a thousand acres of fertile farmland taken in 2006 for Tata Motors' small-car plant, a factory that left before it opened, a government that fell, a statute rewritten in its shadow, and, on 31 August 2016, a Supreme Court judgment quashing the acquisition and ordering the land returned. This note covers the facts, the two concurring opinions with their different reasons, the remedy and the legacy.

1. The Facts

The acquisition: in 2006 the West Bengal Government acquired roughly 997 acres at Singur, Hooghly district, under the 1894 Act's Part II (acquisition for a public purpose) for the Tata Motors small-car project, invoking the urgency of the industrial programme.
The procedure: objections under Section 5A were heard, but the Collector's report and the government's consideration of it were attacked as perfunctory, the decision having in substance been made before the hearing.
The aftermath: protests, the 2008 relocation of the plant to Sanand in Gujarat, the 2011 change of government and the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act, 2011 (struck down by the Calcutta High Court in 2012), and the long road to the Supreme Court.
The bench: Justices V. Gopala Gowda and Arun Mishra, concurring in the result for different reasons.

2. The Two Opinions

📖 Kedar Nath Yadav v. State of West Bengal (Supreme Court, 31 August 2016)

Held: Justice Gowda: the acquisition was in substance for a company, Tata Motors, and could lawfully proceed only under Part VII of the 1894 Act with its company-acquisition safeguards; routing it through Part II as a public-purpose acquisition was impermissible, and the Collector's Section 5A enquiry was a mechanical formality. Justice Mishra: acquisition for industrial development can be a public purpose, so he did not join the Part VII reasoning, but the Section 5A hearing was vitiated by non-application of mind, the Collector having failed to consider the objections with an open mind. Both: the acquisition was quashed, the land directed to be identified, restored and returned to the owners and cultivators within twelve weeks, and the compensation already paid not to be refunded, the owners having been deprived of their land and livelihood for a decade.

3. The Lessons

Public purpose is justiciable: a taking labelled public purpose but serving a named private enterprise must meet the law's company-acquisition safeguards, Justice Gowda's reasoning, now embodied in the 2013 Act's Section 2(2) consent requirement for private projects (Topic 12).
The hearing is substantive: even where the purpose survives, a Section 5A hearing reduced to formality voids the acquisition, Justice Mishra's reasoning, carried into the 2013 Act's Section 15 objections and the SIA hearing (Topics 18 and 27).
Remedy can be restitution: the Court returned the land rather than awarding damages, and let the owners keep the compensation, the rare case where the acquisition's illegality is answered in kind, a remedy the 2013 Act institutionalises in Section 101's return of unutilised land.
The political lesson made law: Singur is the reason the 2013 Act exists in the form it does: consent, SIA, food-security protection for multi-crop land and the narrowing of urgency, each a direct answer to what happened there.

⚠ Key point

Kedar Nath Yadav (31 August 2016, Gowda and Mishra JJ): the 2006 acquisition of about 997 acres for Tata Motors at Singur was quashed. Gowda J: an acquisition for a company dressed as Part II public-purpose acquisition, bypassing Part VII, with a mechanical Section 5A enquiry. Mishra J: industrial development can be public purpose, but the 5A hearing was vitiated by non-application of mind. Land returned within twelve weeks, compensation not refunded. The case behind Section 2(2) consent, the SIA hearing, Section 10 and Section 101.

4. Related Topics and Provisions

Public purpose (Topic 11): the doctrine the case enforces
The consent requirement (Topic 12): Part VII's successor
Defects of the 1894 Act (Topic 3): Singur among the flashpoints
Return of unutilised land (Topic 64): restitution made statutory