AMN
Supreme Court today ordered status quo on land acquired for the construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal’s stretch in Punjab and appointed the Union Home Secretary, Punjab’s Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police as receivers.
A bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy, pronounced this order on a plea by the Haryana government that sought status quo ante in the wake of Punjab government’s decision to denotify the acquired land and restoring it to original owners.
The court, however, made it clear that the receivers are only for the purposes of submitting a report on the ground situation.
On 10th of this month , the Supreme Court had given its verdict on a Presidential reference to hold as unconstitutional the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, passed by the state assembly. After that Punjab government had de-notified nearly 5,000 acres of land acquired for the canal.