tamilarasibabu (Advocate) 22 December 2008

land acquistion

According to Tamilnadu land reforms Act what is the standarad acres of land can be acquied by 1. a private party 2. corporate entity, relevant notifications / provisions are needed in support of the same.

Reply Follow

3 Replies

AEJAZ AHMED (Legal Consultant/Lawyer) 22 December 2008

Dear Mr. Tamilarasibabu,

Following is the details as need:

Policy Note - 2004 - 05

CHAPTER - V

LAND REFORMS

With a view to reducing disparities in the ownership of agricultural land and to distribute the lands declared as surplus among the landless poor, the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961 (Tamil Nadu Act 58/61) was enacted.

Originally the ceiling area for a family consisting of 5 members was 30 standard acres and an additional extent of 5 standard acres was allowed for every additional member with an overall ceiling area of 60 standard acres besides 10 acres of Sridhana for Female member. The Act has undergone several major changes and the ceiling area and also certain exemptions which were available in the original Act were rationalized and withdrawn. The present ceiling areas are as follows:-

I)	For a family consisting of 5 members	15 Standard Acres.
i.	Each Additional Member	5 Standard acres
ii	Over all ceiling area	30 Standard acres
2)	Charitable trusts which were in existence as on1.3.72 were allowed ceiling area	5 Standard acres
3)	All trusts were prohibited to acquire agricultural lands after 1.3.72

Surplus land over the ceiling limit is acquired and is distributed among the landless poor, in the order of preference at the rate not exceeding 3 acres of dry land or 1.50 acres of wet lands under the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Land reforms (Disposal of Surplus Land) Rules, 1965.

Prakash Yedhula (Lawyer) 24 December 2008

The provision of Land Reforms Act states that a family with five members can maximum own 15 standard acres of agricultural land. Additional five acres is allowed for every member of the family, but all put together the maximum a family can own cannot exceed 30 standard acres. This ceiling is applicable for companies as well.

The company or the individual has three kinds of arrangements for holding lands. Some are owned by the subsidiary companies and in some cases the company owns only development rights to the land. In addition to these two arrangements, the companies also entirely own the lands.

The land entirely owned by them is substantially large to attract the provisions of Land Reforms Act. For example, three large public limited real estate companies in their offer documents have declared that they own 67 acres, 500 cares and 46.63 acres respectively.