Govt can buy land by repeat process
In an important judgment on contentious land acquisition issue, the Supreme Court has held that after the judicial orders if the government has followed the provisions of the law issuing “objection” notice to the farmers and duly recorded their statements, the same land can be acquired in a “repeat” process for any public purpose.
In this regard, the top court referred to Karnataka high court’s findings approving the same land by the state government by observing that “any defect in the preliminary notification would not prove fatal to the acquisition proceedings” if the provisions of the law issuing fresh notice to the land owners were complied with and their statements on the “objections” were duly recorded in the repeat exercise.
A bench of Justices M.K. Sharma and A.R. Dave said the purpose of issuing notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act to the landowners was to carry out the preliminary investigation for finding out whether the land was fit for the purpose it was sought to be acquired.
If the provisions of section 4 were fully met, then the government has to make a “firm declaration” under section 6 of the Act that “the land with proper description and area so identifiable is needed for a public purpose or for a company,” the top court held.
The Supreme Court said the basic purpose of issuing the notice under these provisions of the law was that the landowners were not “in any manner prevented from submitting their effective objections and also from getting an opportunity of effective hearing.”
Where these mistakes committed earlier by the authorities were corrected on the orders of the courts in subsequent process with “accurate” findings that the identification of the land was corroborated by facts and details during inquiry made after the objection notice in the presence of the landowners, then government was entitled to acquire the same land.
The top court gave the verdict while dismissing an appeal of P. Partha-sarathy from Kengeri village of south Bengaluru Taluk of Karnataka, the acquisition of whose land in a “repeat” notification after the HC direction for fresh notification was approved.
However, Parthasarathy had still challenged the HC order in the apex court, which was dismissed with the observation that the “HC did not commit any mistake or error in dismissing the writ petition” in the repeat litigation after the government had fulfilled the procedure of inquiry by issuing fresh notice to farmers and recording their statements.
Post new comment