Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has directed the state government to stop payment of salary to Angul district collector and two other officers till the villagers, who lost their land for an irrigation project, are paid due compensation.
Hearing a petition filed by Pramod Kumar Pradhan, a two-judge bench of the high court comprising justices BR Sarangi and BP Satapathy ordered that the salaries of the district collector, land acquisition officer and chief development officer-cum-executive officer of Zilla Parishad of Angul district be stopped till 188 affected villagers get compensation.
As per the petition, the villagers of five villages in the district lost their land which was submerged after the Kukurpeta minor irrigation project was constructed. Though their lands were acquired in 1961, they have not been paid any compensation. Rather, they continued to pay land revenue all these years since the government did not issue a notification regarding acquisition of their land.
Adjudging the case through hybrid mode, the bench passed the order on January 6. “Since the compensation amount has not been paid to the petitioners till date, even though the land was acquired in the year 1961 and in the meantime more than 60 years have passed, this Court directs that the salary of district collector, land acquisition officer and executive officer of Angul Zilla Parishad would not be released till payment of compensation to the petitioners is done,” the Hindustan Times quoted the bench saying in its order.
