Eminent Domain Essay

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Plato and other ancient Greek philosophers saw no limits on governmental powers: all ownership interests derived from the ruler's good favor, which could be revoked at will. The concept that governmental powers should be limited, including a limitation on the sovereign's power to take private property, developed out of Western Christian legal tradition, beginning with the concept that church and state should be separate. Grotius, the seventeenth century jurist, originated the concept of "eminent domain." Grotius contended that the state possessed the power to take or destroy property for the public's benefit, but he further believed that when the state so acted, it was obligated to compensate the injured property owner for his losses. private property. Madison incorporated the concept that a government is morally obligated to pay for its interference with private property: "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." Thus, the Fifth Amendment of the US constitution imposes two distinct conditions - two checks - on the exercise of eminent domain: "the taking must be for a …show more content…

Prior to English colonization, land in India was held by various systems of tenure depending on the location and the cultural heritage. However, much of the land, particularly in northern India, was administered by a group of people referred to as zamindars. Though the zamindari systems varied greatly by region, it was generally the case that those working the land did not own it, but merely served as tenant farmers. The British, however, approached the administration of the land the way one would in a nation-state, even though India was nothing of the sort at the time. To this end, the British focused their attention on land acquisition for the building of infrastructure projects, and passed the first law to this end in

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