Tea planters move Gauhati HC against Assam’s labour line land allotment law

Guwahati, Feb 8: Tea planters’ associations have moved the Gauhati High Court against the State government’s decision to allot labour line land to workers, contending that the “tea cultivation area, factory area and labour line area constitute a single integrated tea estate and none of the components can be arbitrarily severed from each other or treated independently without impairing the statutory, economic and functional viability of the tea garden.”

A bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury listed the two writ petitions for March 26, ruling that “any final action taken pursuant to the impugned legislation shall, however, be subject to the outcome of these writ petitions”.

One of the petitions was moved by Indian Tea Association while another was filed jointly by North Eastern Tea Association, Bharatiya Cha Parishad, Assam Tea Planters Association and Tea Association of India.

The associations pleaded that the Assam Fixation of Ceiling on Land Holdings (Amendment) Act, 2025 – through which the labour line land will be settled – was enacted “without any justification and in violation of the law”.

They stated that in the original Act, an enabling provision was introduced in 1970 for the purpose of increasing the area which was in special cultivation of tea as well as the area which were for ancillary purposes.

Referring to a circular sent to managements which gave two alternatives – whether relinquish the labour line land voluntarily or receive a compensation restricted to fifty times the annual land revenue, the associations said the “acquisition notice is wholly illegal, arbitrary, and unconstitutional, and liable to be quashed”.

They said the new amendment and the consequential steps taken by the government are not within the scope and purposes of the original Act and were in fact “contrary”.

“The new law has sought to take away vested rights of the petitioners in respect of areas held for special tea cultivation and areas held for purposes ancillary thereof,” they said.

The planters argued that enactment of the Act will result in an “impractical, anomalous, irregular and unworkable situation and upend the integrated, contiguous and compact nature of a tea estate resulting in fragmentation and disintegration”.

Advocate General D Saikia countered that the economic inconvenience “as projected by the petitioners cannot invalidate a welfare-oriented law”.

“The Ceiling Laws are always within the authority of the law and many a times, it has been held in catena of decisions affirming the validity of Ceiling Laws that redistribution, in case required, is central to social justice. Plantation exceptions are not absolute and that this is a policy decision and not a constitutional one,” he argued.

Senior advocate KN Choudhury appeared for the petitioners.

Meanwhile, the associations have told their member gardens who receive communication or meeting notices from the district administrations regarding nomination of management representatives to garden level committees for facilitation of labour line land survey and distribution of patta application forms, to respond by stating that “it is technically difficult to participate, as the associations has approached the Gauhati High Court and the matter is sub judice”.