NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court ordered the return of about 1,000 acres acquired in Singur for a Tata Motors factory to farmers, setting aside the 2006 decision of West Bengal's then Left Front government that had handed over most of the land to the company to make its Nano minicar there. 
A bench of Justices V Gopala Gowda and Arun Kumar Mishra on Wednesday termed the acquisition "illegal" as it was carried out without following procedures, and asked the current state government of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to take back the land from the company and hand it to farmers within 12 weeks. Banerjee, initially as an opposition leader and then as the state's chief minister, has been campaigning to return the land to the farmers. 

The farmers who were paid for acquiring their land for the plant can keep the compensation, as they were deprived of their land for ten years. Those who haven't got any so far will have to be compensated by the state government.