More than 100 farmers, along with women and children, in Nagaon district in central Assam have been protesting since 29 January 2021, against ‘forced’ eviction from their lands. They have alleged that the Nagaon district administration, with the help of police and paramilitary forces, have tried to evict them illegally from their land for setting up a 15-megawatt solar power plant at Mikir Bamuni Grant and Lalung Gaon under Samaguri revenue circle by Azure Power Forty Private Limited, a New Delhi-based solar power generation company. According to them, the district administration has threatened the farmers, and the police have harassed and arrested some of them for trying to resist the eviction.

In October 2020, the police arrested 14 farmers following a fracas with the security personnel of Azure Power. The clash broke out when police started destroying crops. In December 2020, four farmers were arrested on charges of assaulting police personnel. The farmers, however, have said that they were framed and arrested on false charges. After spending more than two months in jail, they got bail on 22 February 2021. The police also allegedly mercilessly beat up women who resisted the land acquisition proceedings. Several women were hurt. "They almost broke my hip with sticks. Not a single policewoman was present there," said Malini Doloi, who sustained serious injuries, in a news report. A 28-year-old woman, identified as Champa Timungpi, suffered a miscarriage after the police allegedly kicked in her belly.

In 2018, Assam Power Development Corporation Limited selected 38.4 hectares of farmland at Mikir Bamuni Grant and Lalung Gaon for setting up the solar power plant. The contract for the work was awarded to Azure Power in 2019. Subsequently, in March 2020, the power company started the process of land acquisition.

The farmers, belonging to Karbi (Scheduled Tribe) and Adivasi communities, admitted that the circle officer of Samaguri had served them a notice for the land acquisition, but they say that not enough time was given to file any written objection. According to them, they received the notice on 12 March 2020, and were asked to register their grievances, if any, before the authorities on March 13.

The farmers subsequently moved the Gauhati High Court against the acquisition of their land. The court stayed the eviction on 24 June 2020. But Azure Power appealed against this order, and a fresh notice was issued by the circle officer of Samaguri on 15 July. On 30 September, the Gauhati High Court directed the Nagaon administration to hand over the land to the power company. The farmers again filed a review petition at the Gauhati High Court, to which the court asked them to appeal to the lower courts to resolve the dispute. On 6 October, a local court in Nagaon ordered the district administration and the police to not interfere since the land acquisition had become a civil dispute. However, a few days after this order, the company allegedly used bulldozers to destroy crops sown on the land by the 37 families.

In May 2021, more than 150 academics, students, lawyers, activists and filmmakers condemned the deployment of CRPF personnel at Mikir Bamuni Grant in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and demanded their withdrawal. They collected signatures to ask the authorities to stop the construction of the solar plant.

Azure Power claims that the company has followed the due process of law while acquiring the land. It said in a statement that necessary permissions were taken and that all land purchases were made through private land deals as the land was originally granted to an erstwhile zamindar's family.

The Karbis and Adivasis have been farming on the land for several decades and are solely dependent on it for their livelihood. They obtained possession rights over these lands in 1981 under the Assam (Temporarily Settled Areas) Tenancy Act, 1971. The Act allows a tenant who has held and cultivated a plot of land for more than three years to claim the right of occupancy.

In April 2021, a fact-finding report by the Delhi Solidarity Group exposed Azure Power's alleged land grab at Mikir Bamuni grant. The report said that Azure Power was assisted by district authorities, revenue officials and the police in "forcibly" taking over land that was being cultivated by the villagers, in violation of judicial orders, laws and policies.

“The construction of the solar plant was undertaken with blatant abuse of police power, employed to terrorise local people into submission, and this including a variety of serious human rights abuses. Despite widespread media coverage in local dailies, no action has been initiated against the guilty officials by the State Government,” the report noted. 

Despite a case pending at the Nagaon District and Sessions Court, Azure Power completed and began operating the project in February 2024. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma inaugurated the project in Nagaon on 25 February 2024.