HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE ASHUTOSH MOHUNTA WRIT PETITION No. 13555 OF 2007 DATED 15th December, 2010. BETWEEN Malladi Sridevi …..Petitioner and The District Collector, EG District, at Kakinada and ors …Respondent. HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE ASHUTOSH MOHUNTA WRIT PETITION No. 13555 of 2007: ORDER: The second respondent issued a notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, on 19.6.2007, proposing to acquire agricultural land to an extent of Ac.0.58 cents comprised in Sy. No. 115/5 of Rayavaram village, Rayavaram Mandal, East Godavari District, to which, it is stated, the petitioner is the owner and possessor. It is stated that the acquisition is for the purpose of providing house sites to the poorer sections of the society under INDIRAMMA programme. It is the case of the petitioner that the agricultural lands proposed to be acquired cannot be converted for non-agricultural purpose without obtaining prior permission of the competent authority as required under Section 3 of the A.P. Agricultural (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purpose) Act, 2006, that she is a small farmer and that other alternate government lands are available in the village and therefore her agricultural lands can be exempted from acquisition. This Court while admitting the said Writ Petition on 28.06.2007, granted interim stay of all further proceedings pursuant to the 4(1) notification issued by the first respondent under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, on 19.6.2007. The second respondent-Land Acquisition Officer, filed counter affidavit denying all the averments made in the affidavit filed in support of the Writ Petition. It is stated in the counter affidavit that the provisions of the A.P. Agricultural (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purpose) Act, 2006 have no application to the lands proposed to be acquired for providing house sites to the poorer sections of the society. He placed reliance on the judgment of the single judge of this Court in R.Veera Raghava Prasad and others Vs. District Collector, Krishna District {2008 (2) ALT 136} and submits that the issue that arise for consideration in this Writ Petition is squarely covered by the decision stated supra. I have gone through the judgment relied on by the learned Government Pleader appearing for the respondents. In the said judgment, this Court while dealing with the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 as well as the A.P. Agricultural (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purpose) Act, 2006, held as under: “A careful reading of Section 3, as a whole, clearly indicates that a person shall not use agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes without paying the stipulated conversion fees and obtaining the permission of the competent authority. The 2006 Act is, therefore, intended to achieve the purpose of user of the agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes through a regulatory mechanism. It is significant to notice that certain categories of lands are exempted from the application of the provisions of this Act and one such category relates to the lands owned by the State Government. The attempt on the part of the learned Counsel for the petitioners to relate the provisions of this act to the provisions of the Land Acquisition act, 1894 (for short "the Act") and contend that without conversion the State cannot propose to acquire the agricultural land for putting it to non-agricultural use, has no legal basis at all. In my considered view, the provisions of the two enactments operate in different areas. While the Act empowers the State to acquire private lands for public purposes and also for being used by companies for the purposes mentioned in part-VII of the said Act, the purposes and objects of the 2006 Act are confined only to regulate the conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural use and prescribe and recover NALA. Neither of the two acts places any restriction on the State's power of eminent domain to acquire agricultural land for being used for non-agricultural purposes. That, far from placing such a prohibition on the State, the State is exempted from the application of the provisions of the 2006 Act, is clear from the provisions of Section 7 (a) of the said Act. IN the impugned notifications, the state, through its functionaries, has proposed to acquire the agricultural lands for being put to non-agricultural purposes. Section 3 of the 2006 Act only prohibits use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes without permission from the competent authority and it does not prohibit acquisition of agricultural land for future use for non-agricultural purposes. Thus, the conditional prohibition contained in Section 3 would only apply at the stage when a person, who acquired agricultural land seeks to put the same to non-agricultural use. There is, thus, no prohibition, whatsoever, on an individual or the State to acquire agricultural land with a view to use it for non-agricultural purposes in future. Once the State acquires the land under the provisions of the Act, it becomes the owner and it is exempted from the application of the provisions of the 2006 Act by virtue of Section 7 (a) of the said Act. In view of such an exemption, the restrictions, if any, placed by the provisions of the 2006 Act on the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purpose will have no application to the lands so acquired by the State.” From the above, it is clear that prohibition contained in Section 3 of the A.P. Agricultural (Conversion for Non- Agricultural Purpose) Act, 2006, in respect of acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purpose without conversion, arises only at the stage when it is put to non-agricultural use, and once State acquires land, it is exempted from the provisions of the A.P. Agricultural (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purpose) Act, 2006 by virtue of Section 7(a) of the said Act. Acquisition of agricultural lands for public purpose under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and to use them for non-agricultural purpose is not prohibited under any of the aforesaid Acts. The State under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 is empowered to acquire any land provided it satisfies the test ‘public purpose’ and when once it acquires the land and becomes its owner, it will be subject to the provisions of the A.P. Agricultural (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purpose) Act, 2006. Therefore, the power of the eminent domain inhered in the State is in no way curtailed, controlled or limited by the provisions of the A.P. Agricultural (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purpose) Act, 2006. Thus, it is clear that the acquisition proceedings initiated by the respondents cannot be invalidated on the ground of non- conversion of agricultural land for being used for non-agricultural purposes. The other contentions of the learned Counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner is a small farmer and that alternate lands are available in the same village, do not deserve consideration by this Court since the same will not raise jurisdictional issue to stall further proceedings. Inasmuch as enquiry contemplated under Section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 is yet to be initiated and completed, the petitioner is at liberty to raise all her objections therein. For the foregoing discussion, I do not see any merit in the Writ Petition. The Writ Petition is dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs. ------------------------------------- JUSTICE ASHUTOSH MOHUNTA DATED -15th December, 2010. Msnro