Another criticism of the ordinance is that doing away with the requirement for minimum consent from the land owners will lead to forcible acquisition. The concept of land acquisition, historically and legally, has been an offshoot of State’s power of eminent domain. This has been described by the Supreme Court as recently as 2013 as follows- “power of eminent domain being inherent in the Government is exercisable in the public interest, general welfare and for public purpose. The sovereign is entitled to reassert its domain over any portion of soil of the State including private property without its owners’ consent provided that such assertion to be public exigency.” Therefore land acquisition by the State by its very nature does not require the consent of the land owners. The possibility of misuse of such a power to further private interest cannot be dealt with by requiring consent of land owners and converting acquisition into a private transaction of sale. If the purpose of requiring consent was only to avoid forcible acquisition, there is no reason why this should apply only to projects executed by private entities because the acquisition in all cases is done only by the Government and the project has to be a for a ‘public purpose’ irrespective of who executes it.