IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE SECOND DAY OF JULY TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 25126 of 2005 Between: 1 J. Venkateswarlu, S/o. J. Narasimhaiah, 2 T. Sridhar, S/o. T. Srinivasulu, R/o. Plot No. 26 Srinivasa Cloth Market, Kurnool. 3 Smt. K. Anitha, W/o. K. Siva Reddy, R/o. Nidjour Village, Kurnool Mandal and District 4 Smt. C. Madhavi, W/o. C. Nandakishore, H.No. 26/283/A, Peta Old Town, Kurnool. 5 Smt. B. Latha, W/o. B. Chandra Sekhar, Sai Sruthi Apartments, Vidyanagar, Kurnool. 6 Smt. M. Padmasri, W/o. K. Mohana Rao, H.No. 40/433, Eswar Nagar, Kurnool. ..... PETITIONERS AND 1 The District Collector, Kurnool District. 2 The Revenue Divisional Officer, Kurnool Division, Kurnool. 3 The Mandal Revenue Officer, Kallur Mandal, Kurnool District. 4 The A.P. Housing Board, Rep by its Executive Engineer, Kurnool. ....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:MR.C.V.BHASKAR REDDY Counsel for Respondents 1 to 3 : GP FOR REVENUE Counsel for Respondent No.4 : D.Ranganath Kumar The Court made the following : O R D E R: At the interlocutory stage, the writ petition is taken up for hearing and disposal with the consent of the learned counsel for the parties. This writ petition is filed for a Writ of Mandamus to declare the action of the respondents in seeking to occupy the land admeasuring Acs.12.59 cents in Survey No.154 of Joharapuram Village, Kallur Mandal, Kurnool District, as illegal and without authority of law. Petitioners 1 and 2 in their affidavit traced the genealogy of their vendors in order to show that they have entered into sale transactions/agreements of sale in respect of the land in question with the true and lawful owners of the property. They pleaded that after purchasing Acs.6.75 cents under two registered sale deeds and Acs.10.89 cents under agreements of sale, they developed a lay out and got it sanctioned by the competent authority. They pleaded that petitioners 4, 5 and 6 are among the purchasers of the plots in the lay out through registered sale deeds. On the allegation that on 19-11- 2005, the respondents, without any authority of law, trespassed into the said land and tried to take forcible possession of the same, they filed the present writ petition. In the counter-affidavit filed by respondent No.4, it is averred that as per the revenue records, namely; RSR of Joharapuram Village, the land situated in Survey No.154 admeasuring Acs.12.59 cents belongs to “Budan Khan Masjid”, which is under the control of Andhra Pradesh State Wakf Board, and that the same does not belong to the petitioners; that the said land was granted for the service of the said mosque under title deed No.3738 and the Government of Andhra Pradesh for the purpose of providing house sites to the houseless people belonging to Scheduled Caste and Weaker Sections of Kurnool District initiated land acquisition proceedings and has taken advance possession of lands on 22-06-2005 by invoking urgency clause under Section 17(4) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short ‘the Act’), while dispensing with enquiry under Section 5-A of the Act; that a draft notification under Section 4(1) of the Act was published in the official gazette on 15-06-2005 and in Vaartha and Prajashakthi newspapers on 23-06-2005 and that the draft declaration under Section 6 of the Act was published in the official gazette on 17-06-2005 and in Eenadu and Prajashakthi newspapers on 25-06-2005 apart from publishing the draft notification and draft declaration in the Village by beating tom tom and in public offices. It is further averred that in the draft notification and draft declaration, the name of the owner or occupier is shown as “Budan Khan Masjid”. It is further averred that after taking advance possession, the possession was handed over to the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board for the purpose of construction of houses under “Rajiv Gruhakalpa Scheme” and the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board in turn entered into an agreement for execution of project with M/s Arrow Construction Limited and handed over the possession to the contractor on 21-11-2005. At the hearing, the learned counsel for the petitioners did not dispute the fact that land acquisition proceedings have been initiated, but he contended that the names of the petitioners have not been shown in the said acquisition proceedings. He has also not disputed the fact that the land acquisition proceedings have not been questioned by any of the petitioners. The question whether the petitioners are the true owners of the property or not cannot be gone into in this writ petition as the same remains a disputed question of fact. The writ petition is filed on the premise that the respondents had been interfering with the petitioners’ right of enjoying the property without any authority of law. In the face of the averments contained in the counter-affidavit, which are not disputed by the petitioners, it is quite clear that the respondents have initiated appropriate proceedings under the provisions of the Act to take over the land for which the petitioners have been claiming title. Whether such proceedings are valid in law or not cannot be adjudicated in this writ petition, because their validity is not questioned in this writ petition. Inasmuch as the petitioners’ grievance that they are being dispossessed without any authority of law does not any longer subsist with the initiation of acquisition proceedings under the Act, the writ petition as it is conceived has become infructuous. Hence, the writ petition is dismissed with liberty to the petitioners to avail the remedies available to them in law to question the land acquisition proceedings, if they so intend. As a sequel to dismissal of main petition, interim order dated 25-11-2005 is vacated. WPMP No.32315 of 2005 is dismissed and WVMP Nos.58 and 59 of 2006 are disposed of as infructuous. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY,J Date:2nd July, 2008 vrn