- (1.) Since, common issues of law and fact arise in this batch of petitions, we propose to dispose them, with a common judgment and order. For this purpose, Writ Petition No. 6620 of 2012 is treated as a lead petition, since the pleadings have been mainly filed therein. Learned counsel for the parties also agree that this would be an appropriate course of action to adopt.
(2.) Between the years 1994 and 1999, the ancestral lands and houses held by the petitioners were acquired by the State Authorities since the same were to be submerged under the Nira Deoghar Irrigation Project Waters. In all, about 91 hectares land was acquired, for which, compensation, including solatium and interest was determined at Rs.57.25 lakhs, corresponding to Rs. 63000/- per hectare. This was in the year 1996. Since the petitioners were to be rehabilitated in the lands due to receive the benefit of irrigation project, the petitioners were required to deposit 65% of such compensation with the State Authorities as a part of the occupancy price. This the petitioners did in the year 1996 itself. In the year 2001, when submergence was imminent, the petitioners along with their family members and cattle were physically uprooted and relocated in the village Shedgewadi in the neighbouring district of Satara. Unfortunately, the State Authorities, quite insensitive to the trauma of such up-rootment from ancestral lands and houses, failed to provide any rehabilitation measures at Shedgewadi. In particular, the lands allotted to the petitioners were barren, on account of inadequate water supply and complete lack of irrigation facilities.
(3.) The Nira Deoghar Irrigation Project conceived in the year 1984 was to inter alia comprise the Nira Deoghar Dam, Left Bank Canal (length 21 kms) and Right Bank Canal (length 208 kms). Shedgewadi, where the petitioners have been allotted lands is located at a distance of about 5 kms. from the villages of Bhade and Andori, through which, the Right Bank Canal is meant to pass at kms. 48-49 from the starting point. Therefore, what was contemplated was that the construction of the Right Bank Canal would be at least substantially complete by the time the petitioners are uprooted from the affected zone and rehabilitated in the benefited zone by the year 2000-2001. However, the actual construction of the Right Bank Canal commenced only in the year 2001 and by the year 2008 the construction progressed only up to 19 kms. from the starting point. In the meantime, the petitioners were left to suffer their fate on account of deprivation of adequate water supply and irrigation facilities, which left them without any source of livelihood worth the name.;