The Punjab and Haryana High Court pulled up the Haryana government on Monday in connection with the acquisition of land for development of Sectors 58-63 in Gurgaon, which includes the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust in Ullahawas village. The case is slated to come up for hearing again tomorrow.

Last week, the Haryana government had submitted that it would reconsider the acquisition of over 850 acres of land in Gurgaon, following a bunch of 65 petitions filed by landowners, including artist Anjolie Ela Menon.

The government undertaking came a day after the court had summoned all records related to acquisition of land for the Rajiv Gandhi Trust, and sought the names of the trustees.

A division Bench comprising Justice Jasbir Singh and Justice Augustine George Masih had observed that the state had gone berserk in acquiring land and warned that courts are not helpless.

The Bench had remarked that the state had argued the case for over a week, after which it had suddenly decided to reconsider the acquisition. When you are caught red-handed, you are trying to escape, it had said.

We cannot tolerate what you are doing with the common man. This has to be stopped. We are shocked at the sad state of affairs. Be rational, be fair to everybody, the Bench had said.

Appearing on behalf of one of the land-owners today, senior advocate Chetan Mittal said the conditions imposed by the state government for reconsidering the acquisition are not acceptable.

Among the conditions imposed by the state government for reconsidering acquisition are petitions where it has been claimed that their change of land use/licence application were pending upto declaration of Section 6; petitions where it has been demanded that vacant land be released as it is land-locked and cannot be utilisable by Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA).