Supreme Court forms SIT to probe workings of Noida Authority over compensation to landowners

The SC directed SIT “shall, inter alia, look into…whether the quantum of compensation paid to the landowners was higher than they are entitled to successful presumption of the judgments passed by the courts from clip to time…if so, who were the officers/officials liable for specified exorbitant payment…whether determination was immoderate collusion oregon connivance betwixt the beneficiaries and officers/officials of NOIDA…and….whether the wide functioning of NOIDA lacks transparency”.

“The SIT shall beryllium escaped to look into immoderate different allied contented that whitethorn originate for its information during the people of the investigation,” added the bench.

The SIT volition comprise S B Shiradkar, Additional General of Police, Lucknow Zone, Modak Rajesh D Rao, IG, CBCID, Lucknow, and Hemant Kutiyal, Commandant, Uttar Pradesh, Special Range arsenic Security Battalion, Gautam Budh Nagar, U.P. All 3 are IPS officers of UP cadre, but bash not beryllium to the state.

The lawsuit against the instrumentality serviceman and immoderate onshore owners was registered successful Gautam Budh Nagar Police Station successful 2021. They were granted anticipatory bail and subsequently, the bail was confirmed arsenic they joined the investigation.

However, erstwhile the substance came up for proceeding connected September 14, 2023, it came to airy that this was not the lone lawsuit of alleged excess outgo of compensation to onshore owners and determination were galore instances of specified payments, “prima facie, for extraneous considerations and connected quid pro quo basis.” The tribunal past dealt with the question of whether an autarkic bureau should clasp a deeper probe into the functioning of NOIDA arsenic a statutory authority.

Though a committee was acceptable up, the tribunal noted that it had a constricted mandate and expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome. It was yet suggested that a Special Investigation Team, comprising elder IPS officers of UP cadre who bash not beryllium to the state, beryllium constituted to infuse transparency, fairness and objectivity successful the substance of the probe into the affairs of NOIDA.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court seat picked up the 3 officers from a database handed implicit by the UP Additional Advocate General. The seat asked the SIT to “do the needful, preferably wrong 2 months” and taxable the study to it successful a sealed cover. The seat added that “no coercive oregon penal enactment shall beryllium taken against the onshore owners/farmers without” its “prior permission”.