Gauhati HC questions Assam over land buy in 6th Schedule area

New Delhi: The Gauhati High Court asked how a cement company can purchase 3,000 bighas of land in the Dima Hasao district of Assam while hearing a writ petition by 22 residents of the area on Monday.

Assam's advocate general Debojit Saikia told the court that a cement company purchased the land at the rate of ₹2 lakh per bigha. After repeated requests from the advocate general, the court asked the government to file its affidavit on September 3. During last hearing, justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi was astonished to hear 3,000 bighas! "The entire district? What is going on? A private company being given 3,000 bighas."

The counsel for the NC Hills Autonomous Council who has jurisdiction of the land on Monday produced a few papers related to the allotment of 3,000 bighas of land to a cement factory in Dima Hasao, but the Gauhati High Court directed it to produce the entire file which contained the decision to allot the "huge chunk" of the land in a Sixth Schedule area to the private firm.

"The counsel for the NCHAC produced some papers. The objective of the last order was not to look at a few papers, but to look at the file which contains the decision to allot the huge chunk of land," justice Medhi said, directing the council to produce the file at the next hearing.

The advocate general said the state government had constituted a three-member committee to investigate the matter and it has submitted a report.