Karwar: Seabird project evacuees submitted a memorandum to Deputy Commissioner Imkongla Zamir in Karwar on Tuesday demanding settlement of compensations claims, which have been kept pending in the court of Special Land Acquisition Officer, within four months as per the Supreme Court direction.

The memorandum stated that hundreds of acres land in 13 villages of Karwar and Ankola taluks was acquired by the government and was handed over to Defence Ministry in 1998. The authorities had fixed 150 as compensation for per gunta of land. But, the farmers were not happy with the compensation amount and had moved the court.

Going through the appeal, the local court had ordered the government to pay Rs 11,500 as compensation for per gunta land. This judgement was challenged in the High Court, which had upheld the lower court’s judgement.

This was further challenged in the Supreme Court by Defence Estate Officer. After going through the case, the apex court rejected the appeal on September 13 and upheld the judgement of lower courts the memorandum mentioned.

The evacuees appealed to distribute compensation to those who got little compensation in 1989 and could not move the court due to various reasons. This could be taken up under Section 28 (A) of the Land Acquisition Act.

Leaders Gajanan Naik, K Shambhu Shetty, P M Tandel, Prabhakar Malsekar, Ramesh Gowda, Chandrakant Kharvi, Prakash Naik, Zilla Panchayat member Madhukar Naik and others were present.