THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION. No.592 of 2007 Date: 28.01.2008 Between: Thota Venugopala Suryanarayana Rao … Petitioner AND The District Collector, East Godavari District at Kakinada, & others. … Respondents Counsel for the petitioner : Sri Challa Dhanamjaya Counsel for the respondents: Assistant Government Pleader for Land Acquisition THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION. No.592 of 2007 ORDER:- This writ petition is filed for a writ of mandamus to set aside notification dated 03.12.2006 issued under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short, ‘the Act’). At the hearing, learned counsel for the petitioner raised two contentions, namely, i) that without conversion of the agricultural lands for non-agricultural purposes under the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land (Conversion for non-Agricultural Purposes) Act, 2006, the proposed acquisition of the petitioner’s lands is illegal, and (ii) that the impugned notification, wherein enquiry under Section 5A of the Act is dispensed with is illegal. As regards the first contention, this Court in judgment dated 28.12.2007 passed in Writ Petition No.18881 of 2006 and batch rejected a similar contention. Therefore, the first contention fails and is accordingly rejected. With regard to the second contention, I see merit in the same. As could be seen from the impugned notification, the purpose of acquisition is to provide house sites to the weaker sections. In my considered view, acquisition for the said purpose does not warrant dispensing with of enquiry under Section 5A of the Act, which provides for a valuable opportunity to the owners of the lands who seek to object to the proposed acquisition as held in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited v. Darius Shapur Chenai and others[1]. Learned Assistant Government Pleader for Land Acquisition stated that declaration dated 15.12.2006 was issued under Section 6 of the Act. In view of the above, declaration dated 15.12.2006 issued under Section 6 of the Act is set aside and the respondents are directed to hold enquiry under Section 5A of the Act by giving an opportunity of personal hearing to the petitioner before proceeding further with the proposed acquisition. The writ petition is disposed of accordingly. As a sequel to disposal of the writ petition, WPMP.No.723 of 2007 and WVMP.No.3119 of 2007 are disposed of as infructuous. C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Date: 28.01.2008 ES [1] (2005) 7 SCC 627