The Karnataka High Court on Thursday ordered issue of notice to the State government on a PIL petition questioning the constitutional validity of the Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, promulgated on July 13, that primarily eases restrictions on buying agricultural land besides increasing limit for holding agricultural land by a family.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Ashok S. Kinagi passed the order on the PIL petition filed by Nagaraj Sheshappa Hongal, a journalist and social activist from Bagalkot district.
The petitioner contended that the Ordinance had brought tremendous pressure on farmers to sell their land and no farmer could purchase agricultural land any time in future due to highly speculative agricultural investment, which is happening now and the same would further destroy interest of farmers.
“The Karnataka government has been attempting to defeat the very objective of the Land Reforms Act slowly, but deliberately. In 2015, the government had increased the non-agricultural income limit for purchasing agricultural land from ₹2 lakh to ₹25 lakh. This also opened the market of farm land in favour of large number of affluent class of people,” the petitioner claimed.
Pointing out that the younger generation of farmers are forced to migrate to cities due to various acts of anomaly caused by the waves of globalisation, the petitioner contended that the economic forces who want to snatch away agricultural land from vast population of India will benefit from the amendment of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961, through the Ordinance.
The Ordinance, the petitioner contended, would attract urban investments in agriculture and as a result, a farmer cannot compete with this price in the open market to purchase farm land. Also, the petition said the social objective, of removing inequality in the holding of agricultural lands, of the Act had been defeated by the amendment made through the Ordinance.
