Calcutta, June 22: A pass-the-buck game was underway at the state secretariat today after Calcutta High Court struck down the Singur law and attempts were being made to pinpoint the departments responsible for the embarrassment to the Mamata Banerjee government.

One of the key loopholes cited by the court was the absence of the assent of the President, a requirement whenever a state law is in conflict with the provisions of a central act.

Sources in the state secretariat said the departments of law and commerce and industries were the prime movers behind the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011.

“The commerce and industries department moved the bill in the Assembly, but the bill was prepared by the law department,” said an official of the commerce and industries department.

While officials from the law department said the commerce and industries department had actively taken part in preparing the bill, a section of officials highlighted how the land and land reforms department was kept out of the entire process.

“Ideally, the land department should have moved the bill…. But the processes were not followed as the government was in a hurry to bring a bill to return land to unwilling farmers in Singur,” an official said.

Returning land to the farmers in Singur was the first decision that the Mamata Banerjee government took in its first cabinet meeting on May 20, the day the new government was sworn in.

Several officers The Telegraph spoke to this evening recounted the tearing hurry that the government had shown.

“The high court has made it clear that the process was not right. So, the government is yet to take a decision on whether to challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court. The government may bring a new bill to meet its objective,” a senior state government official said.

The official, however, said senior ministers in the cabinet were aware of the deficiencies in the bill even before it was placed and subsequently passed in the Assembly on June 14 last year.

“When the draft bill was sent to the governor on June 11, three days before it was tabled, the governor and his officials repeatedly asked whether the bill required presidential assent,” an official said.

Sources in the state secretariat said government officials and at least one minister had stressed that it would not require presidential assent as the state government was not acquiring the land afresh.

“Those who had prepared the bill were under the impression that the state can take back the land and return it to the erstwhile landowners through a state act as land is on the state list,” an official said.

According to him, the law department had stressed on four major points — Sections 3, 4(3), 5 and 6 of the bill — to return plots to the unwilling farmers of Singur. Through these sections, the state wanted to cancel the lease, vest it with the state government, fix compensation for the Tatas through the Hooghly district judge and return plots to the unwilling farmers.

“But all these sections hit the central act — Land Acquisition Act, 1894 — and that’s the reason why these were struck down by the high court,” the official added.

The mistake committed while drafting the Singur bill was, however, not repeated in some of the subsequent bills, a clear indication that the government knew about its shortcomings.

The West Bengal Land Acquisition Laws (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2011 — which was placed by the new government in December last year — was sent for presidential assent as it wanted to keep acquisition of nearly 12,000 acres alive. These acquisitions had lapsed following a Supreme Court verdict in 2010.

“This shows that the state government was aware in which case presidential assent is required,” the official said.