When people’s movements and researchers welcomed India’s new land acquisition law in 2013, it came with one caveat. The colonial 1894 law had allowed the government to exercise its powers of eminent domain only for public purpose, whereas the new law made it possible for the government to do so for private companies too. It was concluded that this was made possible by expanding the definition of public purpose to include public-private-partnerships (PPP) within its scope.
A recent judgment of the Gujarat High Court brings out a very interesting facet of the 1894 law. . .
