IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTY FOURTH DAY OF SEPTEMBER, TWO THOUSAND EIGHT ONLY PRESENT: THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.25675 of 2001 Between: Dr. Kamineni Sasidhar … Petitioner AND The Government of A.P., rep., by Chief Secretary, Secretariat, Hyderabad & others. … Respondents Counsel for the petitioner : Sri N. Ravindranath Reddy Counsel for respondents 1,3&5: AGP for Land acquisition This Court made the following: THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.25675 of 2001 ORDER:- This writ petition is ﬁled for a writ of Mandamus to set aside Award dated 16.11.2001 passed by respondent No.3 in respect of land in Sy.Nos.181, 182 and 183 of Yellareddyguda Village, Narketpally Mandal, Nalgonda District. The petitioner sought for a consequential direction to award damages against respondent No.5. The facts to the extent, which are relevant, are as under: An extent of Ac.2.00 of land was donated by the petitioner on free of cost to respondent No.4 company for establishment of 220/132 KV sub-station. Thereafter, respondent No.4 again approached the petitioner to donate another extent of Ac.15.00 in the year 1994. The petitioner expressed his willingness to give away the land, not on free of cost, but on payment of market value. According to the petitioner, he and respondent No.4 company arrived at the price of Rs.85,000/- per acre and in pursuance of the said understanding, respondent No.4 requested the revenue authorities to initiate the land acquisition proceedings. Even before acquisition proceedings were initiated, possession of the land was taken. On 14.11.1995, the Mandal Revenue Oﬃcer addressed a letter to the Executive Engineer of respondent No.4, wherein it is mentioned that the extent of Ac.15.00 was being handed over pending payment of compensation to the petitioner as per negotiations. Later, a 220/132 KV sub-station was erected on the land. As payment of compensation was not made to the petitioner, he approached respondent No.4, which in turn requested respondent No.3 to initiate land acquisition proceedings for acquiring the land. Through letter dated 24.01.1996 addressed to the Executive Engineer of respondent No.4, respondent No.3 requested to provide funds to the tune of Rs.13,00,000/- for initiating the acquisition proceedings. After repeated requests of the petitioner, respondent No.4 deposited the sum of Rs.13,00,000/- with respondent No.3 on 13.12.1997. On 27.08.1999, respondent No.3 issued notiﬁcation under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short, ‘the Act’) and on 31.08.1999 declaration under Section 6 of the Act was made. In response to the notices issued under Sections 9(3) and 10 of the Act, the petitioner ﬁled his claim petition dated 28.06.2001, wherein he claimed Rs.3,00,000/- per acre with 30% solatium and interest at 15% per annum. Notice dated 02.07.2001 was issued by respondent No.3 in Form-I to the petitioner to appear before the Negotiation Committee on 07.07.2001. The General Power of Attorney holder of the petitioner appeared before the Negotiation Committee on 21.07.2001 and submitted his claim statement, wherein while claiming that the present cost of the land was not less than three lakhs per acre and that there was no justiﬁcation whatsoever in the Revenue Divisional Oﬃcer, who is the Convenor of the Negotiation Committee and the Joint Collector, Nalgonda in recommending a paltry sum of Rs.25,000/- per acre. The petitioner referred to the agreed amount of Rs.85,000/- per acre in his claim petition and requested the District Collector to accordingly ﬁx the compensation. As no positive action was forthcoming, the petitioner pursued with respondent No.4 which in turn addressed letter dated 13.08.2001 to respondent No.3, wherein respondent No.4 clearly stated that during the year 1995-96, a settlement was reached after prolonged discussions with the land owners for acquisition of the land at Rs.85,000/- per acre for construction of the Sub-Station, that as desired by respondent No.3, the erstwhile APSEB deposited Rs.12,26,000/- vide cheque dated 13.12.1997, which was returned on 17.07.1998 on the ground that its validity period expired and that it was advised to deposit the amount through demand draft and accordingly a demand draft was handed over on 11.09.1998 for payment of the same to the land owners. He reiterated that the land was taken over on mutual consent for payment of compensation of Rs.85,000/- per acre. He requested respondent No.3 to issue consent award without extra cost to respondent No.4. Despite the said categorical letter addressed by respondent No.4, respondent No.3 passed award on 16.11.2001, whereby he awarded Rs.10,000/- per acre as compensation. Respondent No.3, Land Acquisition Oﬃcer (for short, ‘the LAO’) was impleaded as respondent No.5 in his personal capacity. Speciﬁc allegations are made against him that he conducted himself in the most arbitrary and unreasonable manner and that his entire conduct smacks of malaﬁde intention of harassing the petitioner. Respondent Nos.1, 3 and 5 have not ﬁled any counter aﬃdavit for the last seven years. In the counter aﬃdavit ﬁled by the Executive Engineer, TLC/Rural/Hyderabad on behalf of respondent No.4, he categorically admitted that after detailed discussions, the land owners accepted the land cost at the rate of Rs.85,000/- per acre and consent letters to that eﬀect were obtained from the petitioner and Smt. R.Laxmamma. He also stated that on 16.01.1996, the Executive Engineer requested respondent No.3 to intimate the amount to be paid, that accordingly by letter dated 24.01.1996, respondent No.3 requested to deposit the sum of Rs.13,00,000/- and that the deposit was accordingly made on 16.12.1997 through cheque dated 13.12.1997. He further stated that as the validity of the cheque expired, the same was replaced with two demand drafts dated 11.09.1998. He also stated that through letter dated 13.08.2001 respondent No.4 informed the LAO about the settlement between the petitioner and respondent No.4 with a request to pass a consent award. Despite such a request being made, respondent No.3 passed award under Section 11(1) of the Act. Heard Sri M. Ravindranath Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioner, learned Assistant Government Pleader for Land Acquisition and carefully gone through the material filed by the petitioner. As discussed hereinabove, the fact that the petitioner and respondent No.4, for whom the property was acquired, arrived at a negotiated price of Rs.85,000/- per acre is not in dispute. In his award, respondent No.3 referred to letter dated 01.08.1995 addressed by the Executive Engineer of respondent No.4, wherein the LAO was informed about the negotiated rate of Rs.85,000/- per acre, but he declined to act on the same on the ground that the requisition authority did not consult RDO/LAO, Nalgonda, on the procedure to be followed for ﬁxing the market value and that the value has to be ﬁnalized only at the award stage. Interestingly, letter dated 13.08.2001 written by the Executive Engineer of respondent No.4 after the LAO issued Sections 9(3) and 10 notices was not referred to by him. In his award, the LAO referred to the following three sale transactions: “1. 3294/96 dated 26.06.1996 Rs.1,25,000-00 P.A. 2. 4142/96 dated 12.08.1996 Rs. 1,25,000-00 P.A. 3. 3575/96 dated 08.07.1996 Rs. 1,25,000-00 P.A.” Curiously he ignores the above documents on the ground that the period of sale transactions covered by those three documents fell a few days prior to the three years period preceding the date of the notiﬁcation. He relied upon Board Standing Order 90 Para 8(3) in this regard. On a close analysis of the manner in which the LAO passed award shows that he conducted himself in a wholly arbitrary and whimsical manner in passing the award under Section 11(1) instead of passing a consent award under Section 11(2) of the Act. The very purpose of constituting a negotiation committee is to arrive at a negotiated settlement. It is an admitted fact that a negotiation committee was constituted, but the LAO has not discussed in his award whether the committee arrived at any negotiated settlement or not. Be that as it may, when both the land owner and the requisitioning department had arrived at a negotiated settlement, which fact was repeatedly brought to the notice of the LAO, there is absolutely no reason for him to ignore the settlement. After all the purpose of passing an award is to ﬁx compensation equal to the market value of the land prevailing at the time of notiﬁcation issued under Section 4(1) of the Act. By arriving at a settlement, the necessity of making an award on merits under Section 11(1) is obviated. Even if the negotiation committee has not communicated the settlement, Rule 18 of the Andhra Pradesh Land Acquisition (Negotiations Committee) Rules, 1992 (for short, ‘the Rules’) envisages that nothing in the rules prevents the LAO from passing consent awards under Section 11(2) read with the second proviso to Section 31(2) of the Act. He could very well have passed a consent award even in the absence of a negotiated settlement under the Rules on the strength of claim petition dated 21.07.2001 of the petitioner and letter dated 13.08.2001 addressed by the Director (Transmission) of respondent No.4 company, wherein he categorically stated that mutual consent for payment of compensation of Rs.85,000/- per acre was arrived at between the petitioner and respondent No.4. The LAO, as noted earlier, very conveniently omitted to refer to his letter in his award. The devious approach of the LAO is further evident from the fact that he ignored as many as three registered sale deeds as mentioned above on the specious ground that the transactions under the said documents took place a few days prior to the preceding three years period by placing reliance on the provisions of BSO. I have gone through BSO 90 Para 8 (3). It is required to be noted that the BSO do not have any statutory force. They are merely executive instructions, which cannot over ride the statutory provisions. The acquisition is covered by the statutory provisions under the Act. There is no bar on the LAO to consider the sale transactions on the ground that the same are in a particular proximity of time. All that the LAO is required to decide is the actual market value prevailing on the date of notiﬁcation with reference to the comparable sale transactions in respect of the lands situated in the vicinity with similar advantages or disadvantages and within reasonable proximity of time to the date of notiﬁcation. LAO chose to discretely select document No.4441 of 1998 dated 04.09.1998, which was incidentally executed by the petitioner in favour of an educational institution for a consideration of Rs.10,000/- per acre. In his aﬃdavit, the petitioner speciﬁcally asserted that under the said transaction, the petitioner conveyed an extent of Ac.4.37 guntas to the Kamineni Educational Society for which he is the Honorary Secretary and Promoter and that the petitioner has given the said land to the educational institution with a philanthropic view to develop the educational institutions being run in their family name. I do not consider that the LAO was so ignorant and naïve in not considering the circumstances under which the said sale transaction was entered into and executed by the petitioner. The manner in which the LAO thwarted the eﬀorts of the owner and the beneﬁciary in ensuring that acquisition takes place at a negotiated price leaves no doubt in the mind of the Court that he acted for collateral purposes and extraneous reasons. On the facts of the case as discussed above, there can be no doubt that passing of award by the LAO is a colourable exercise of power. Respondent No.5 abused his position as LAO in denying the petitioner the compensation, which is duly settled between him and the beneﬁciary i.e., respondent No.4. The impugned award therefore cannot be sustained in law and the same is accordingly quashed. Respondent No.3 is directed to pass a fresh award on the basis of the consent given by the petitioner and respondent No.4 within a period of six weeks from today. As noted supra, though the LAO was impleaded in his personal capacity as respondent No.5, he has not felt it appropriate even to ﬁle a counter aﬃdavit to explain his position with reference to the allegations of mala ﬁdes made against him. His conduct does not beﬁt the oﬃce he holds as he has shown lack of responsibility and sensitivity not only in discharging his oﬃcial functions as LAO, but also in responding to the process of the Court. Respondent No.5 deserves stringent action for abuse of his oﬃcial position. The Chief Secretary is directed to initiate appropriate proceedings against respondent No.5 and report the action to the Court in this regard within a period of eight weeks from today. Subject to the above observations, the writ petition is allowed. ____________________________ C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Date: 24.09.2008 ES Note:- Registry is directed to communicate a copy of this order to the Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Secretariat, Secretariat Buildings, Hyderabad.