IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE TWENTY NINETH DAY OF APRIL TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT HON'BLE MR JUSTICE GOPALA KRISHNA TAMADA WRIT PETITION NO : 9691 of 2008 Between: 1 Vadlapatla Venkata Lalithendranath Chowdary S/o V. Lalithamba 2 Devineni basava Rao S/o Venkata Ramaiah 3 Korlipara Neelakanteswaramma W/o bhagavannarayana 4 Chalasani Gandhi Vara Prasad Rao S/o Gopala Krishna 5 N. jaya lakshmi Devi W/o N. vishnu vardhan 6 Korlipara Seetharama Swamy S/o Kasi Viswanadham All are R/o Main Road, Ashok Ngar, Eluru, West Godavari District. ..... PETITIONER(S) AND 1 The State of Andhra Pradesh repby its Principal secretary to (Revenue) Land Acquisition Department, Secretariat, Saifabad, Hyderabad. 2 District Collector, West Godavari District at Eluru. 3 Revenue Divisional Officer-cum-Land Acquisition Officer, Eluru, West Godavri District. 4 Superintending Engineer, Roads & Buildings Department, Eluru, West Godavari district 5 Tahsildar, Eluru mandal, Eluru, West Godavari District. .....RESPONDENT(S) Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Affidavit filed herein the High Court will be pleased to issue a Writ, order or direction more particularly one in the nature of Writ of mandamus declaring the notification in ROC No. G2/6559/07 dated 20-04-2008 as published in Eenadu Telugu Daily News Paper on 24-04-2008 issued by the 2nd respondent as illegal, irregular, arbitrary, irrational, vitiated by political malafides and contrary to the provisions of Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and offends articles 14, 21 and 300A of Constitution of India and Consequently Quash the said notification. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.NIMMAGADDA SATYANARAYANA Counsel for the Respondent No.: GP FOR LAND ACQUISITION The Court made the following : Form-NIC-OGS/WP{TRT} O R D E R:- This writ petition is filed seeking a mandamus to declare the Notification dated 20.4.2008 issued by the 2nd respondent under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act (for brevity “the Act”) proposing to acquire the petitioners’ land and building by invoking urgency clause under Section 17(4) of the Act and dispensing with the enquiry under Section 5-A of the Act, for the purpose of road widening, as arbitrary and illegal. The petitioners assert that they are the absolute owners and possessors of a site and building situated towards east of Ashok Nagar Main Road. There is vast extent of Government Assessed waste land which was encroached by Municipal Corporator, Makineni Venkateswara Rao and others towards west of Ashok Nagar Main Road. While so, the 2nd respondent-District Collector issued a Notification dated 20.4.2008 proposing to acquire the petitioners’ land and building for the purpose of road widening. By invoking urgency clause under Section 17(4) of the Act the enquiry under Section 5-A of the Act is dispensed with. Now, the grievance of the petitioners is that though the Government Assessed waste land is available, the respondents-authorities are resorting to acquire the land in question. Heard the learned counsel for both the parties and perused the material placed on record. The impugned Notification dated 20.4.2008 makes it amply clear that the authorities have not dispensed with the enquiry to be conducted under Section 5-A of the Act. In view of the same, it may not be necessary for this Court to go into various contentions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioners, but suffice it to direct the petitioners to file their objections within a period of four weeks from today and on such objections being filed, the Land Acquisition Officer shall pass appropriate orders on their objections, within a period of two weeks thereafter, only after affording an opportunity to the petitioners of being heard. In terms of the above direction, this writ petition is disposed of at the admission stage. No costs. ______________ 29.04.2008 Note: Furnish copy in two days B/o bcj