New Delhi, August 31 (Agencies): The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the acquisition of nearly 1000 acres at Singur in West Bengal in 2006 by the then Left Front government for a Tata Motors plant, and said all of it must to be returned to farmers within three months.

A division bench of Justices Gopala Gowda and Arun Kumar Mishra, setting aside a Calcutta high court order that had upheld the land acquistion, said the acquisition collector had not properly conducted an enquiry into the complaints of cultivators with regard to the acquisition of the plots.

The Supreme Court’s judgment is a major victory for Mamata Banerjee, who led her Trinamool Congress to a landslide victory in May 2011 against the Left Front on the back of her prolonged struggle against acquisition of farmland at Singur, and at Nandigram for another Left Front showcase project.

Shortly after coming to power, Mamata’s government enacted the Singur Land Rehabilitation & Development Act of 2011 on June 14 to keep her promise to return around 400 acres to the farmers who had refused to part with their land or accept compensation.

Tata Motors, which shifted the landmark Nano small-car project to Gujarat in August 2008 in the face of protests that it said had endangered the lives of its factory staff, challenged the Constitutional validity of the Singur land act.

In the battle that followed in the high court, a single judge upheld the Act, but a division bench struck it down.

In effect, there are two appeals in the Singur case. The first, on which the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, was filed by a civil rights outfit on behalf of the farmers in 2008, challenges a Calcutta High Court order upholding the land acquisition.

The other appeal was moved by the Trinamool government challenging a division bench order striking down the Singur land act.

In Wednesday’s Supreme Court judgment, the two judges, who were unanimous in quashing the acquisition process and for retainment of the compensation awarded to the land owners and the cultivators for being deprived of the use of their land for last 10 years, gave their own separate reasonings for arriving at their findings.

They agreed that the land should be restored in 12 weeks to the owners and cultivators after completing the survey, identification and other formalities within 10 weeks.

The apex court said the state government cannot claim back the amount of compensation given to the land-losers as it had enjoyed the right over the acquired land for ten years.

There was disagreement between the two judges on two points, with Justice Gowda saying that the land was not acquired for public purpose directly by the Tata Motors and Justice Mishra holding that there was no illegality in the land acquisition of land for public purpose as it would have given employement to thousands of people in West Bengal.

The appeals against the Calcutta High Court order of January 18, 2008, were filed by various farmers and NGOs including one Kedar Nath Yadav.

It was alleged that the acquisition of land was against the relevant provisions of Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and other rules.

Seeking judicial intervention, the appeals had said the acquired plots were “so fertile” that they were being cultivated twice or thrice a year and the acquisition in the name of public purposes had violated the fundamental rights of the farmers.