IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) TUESDAY, THE TWENTY THIRD DAY OF SEPTEMBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE L.NARASIMHA REDDY WRIT PETITION No. 20021 of 2008 Between: Annamdevara Venkata Rao, S/o. Pattabhiramaiah Gollaprolu,East Godavari District ..... PETITIONER AND 1 State of Andhra Pradesh rep.by its District Collector,East Godavari District Kakinada 2 Land Acquisition Officer Cum-Revenue Divisional Officer Kakinada E.G District .....RESPONDENTS 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 an appropriate writ, direction more particularly the one in the nature of writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the respondents in acquiring the petitioner's land to the extent of Ac 2-11 cents covered by sy No.594/3 of Gollaprolu (V) East Godavari District for the alleged purpose of providing houses under Indiramma Programme Ignoring the fact that totally blind small farmer and a Senior Citizen and that there are many other suitable lands available in the Village as illegal arbitrary unjust unfair mala ﬁde and against constitutional gurantees particularly for the disabled persons and to consequently direct the Respondents to drop all further acquisition proceedings to acquire the said land. Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.K.SARVA BHOUMA RAO Counsel for the Respondents: GP FOR LAND ACQUISITION The Court made the following ORDER: The petitioner is the owner of an extent of Acs.2.11 cents of dry land in survey No.594/3 of Gollaprolu Village, East Godavari District. This land along with other certain extents was notiﬁed by the District Collector, East Godavari District, the ﬁrst respondent herein, under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short ‘the Act’) for the purpose of providing house sites under Indiramma Phase-III Programme. In response to a notice under Section 5-A of the Act, the petitioner and certain others submitted representations. The petitioner pleaded that apart from being a poor small farmer, he is totally blind and suﬀering from other ailments. He stated that the land is the only source of livelihood for him. It is also contended that the Government land and the land belonging to others in the Village suitable for house sites is available. The objection raised by the petitioner was rejected by the ﬁrst respondent, through his orders, dated 08.08.2008. Hence, this writ petition. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Government Pleader for Land Acquisition. The very object of the scheme undertaken by the respondents is to ameliorate conditions of poor and downtrodden. The implementation of the scheme should not result in the deterioration of the condition of those who are already suffering. The petitioner submitted a detailed representation stating, inter alia, that he is totally blind and he is dependent upon the meager income derived from the land. The Government itself has been evolving several schemes for the beneﬁt of visually handicapped persons. The steps taken by the respondents have the eﬀect of worsening the situation of the petitioner. He is virtually rendered without any source of income. The manner in which the ﬁrst respondent dealt with this objection in his order, dated 08.08.2008, is, in fact, deplorable. In his anxiety to launch a popular scheme, he has virtually trampled the rights of visually handicapped persons with meager income. When the petitioner and others have cited the availability of other lands, the ﬁrst respondent discarded the said objections on the ground that they belonged to small farmers. In the process, he ignored the claim of the petitioner, who himself is a small farmer, apart from being blind. The whole exercise smacks of arbitrariness and the eﬀorts appear to be only to concentrate on populistic schemes. Hence, the writ petition is allowed and the notiﬁcation issued under Section 4(1) of the Act and other consequential proceedings in so far as they are related to the land of the petitioner shall stand set aside. There shall be no order as to costs. __________________ L.NARASIMHA REDDY,J Dt:23.09.2008. kdl