The Hon'ble Sri Justice C.V.Nagarjuna Reddy Writ Petition No.30433 of 2011 Date: 17th November, 2011 Between: Union of India, Rep. by its Divisional Railway Manager, South Central Railway, Vijayawada. ..... Petitioner and 1.State of A.P., rep. by its Principal Secretary, Transport, R&B (Scr IV) Dept, Secretariat, Hyderabad and 2 others. .....Respondents Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr.S.R.Ashok Counsel for Respondent No.1: AGP for R & B Counsel for respondent Nos.2 & 3: AGP for Land Acquisition The Court made the following : O R D E R: This Writ Petition is ﬁled for a Mandamus to set aside proceedings bearing R.C.No.G2/2959/1996, dated 03-07-2011, of respondent No.2. In the view this Court is proposing to take, it is not necessary to record detailed facts. It will suﬃce to note that the proceedings initiated for acquisition of certain lands for the Railways, under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, are subject matter of Writ Petition Nos.20260 of 1996 and batch. After a detailed consideration of the case, a learned single Judge of this Court quashed the notiﬁcations on several grounds, by Common Judgment, dated 24-03-1999. The concluding part of the said judgment, which is relevant for the present purpose reads as under: “Therefore, what follows from the above is that on account of declaration that the notiﬁcations issued under Section 4 (1) having been declared as unreasonable and void, the respondents have to take steps to issue fresh notiﬁcation under Section 4 (1) of the LA Act. I, therefore, direct the respondents to take fresh steps to issue notiﬁcation under Section 4 (1) of the LA Act within 3 months from today and thereafter pass the award within 3 months.” (Emphasis added) Feeling aggrieved by the said judgment, both the Railways and Oﬃcials of the State involved in the Land Acquisition ﬁled Writ Appeal No.752 of 1999 and batch. A Division Bench of this Court, on a thorough consideration of all the aspects of the case, aﬃrmed the judgment of the learned single Judge by its judgment, dated 20- 02-2009, and directed as under: “The judgment in W.P.No.32745/1997 ﬁled by the Railways, against which no Writ Appeal has been ﬁled, attained ﬁnality, and therefore, we are not inclined to interfere with the common judgment of the learned single judge in W.P.No.20360/1997 and W.P.17068/97 and accordingly the four Writ Appeals viz. W.A.Nos.752, 753, 979 and 853 of 1999 are dismissed. The Government is directed to issue notiﬁcation under Section 4 (1) of the Act afresh forthwith and pass awards. The compensation paid to the landowners is liable to be adjusted against the compensation to be paid pursuant to the fresh notification. No order as to costs.” (Emphasis added) At the hearing, it has come out that the Special Leave Petitions ﬁled against the above- mentioned judgments are pending before the Supreme Court. In pursuance of the judgments, referred to above, respondent No.2 has issued notiﬁcation under Section 4 (1) of the Act afresh on 03-07- 2011. Feeling aggrieved by the said notiﬁcation, the petitioner filed the present Writ Petition. The petitioner has pleaded that in view of long lapse of time, the very purpose, for which the requisition was given for acquiring the land, is frustrated and therefore, the respondents ought not to have initiated fresh acquisition proposals. After hearing Sri S.R.Ashok, learned Senior Counsel, appearing for the petitioner, I am of the opinion that, in view of the peremptory directions contained in the judgments of the learned single Judge as well as of the Division Bench, the respondents are left with no option other than initiating fresh acquisition proceedings. The plea of the petitioner that in the absence of fresh requisition given by it, the respondents ought not to have issued the impugned notiﬁcation is without any merit. A requisition was already given, in pursuance of which acquisition proceedings were initiated, which became abortive with the interference by this Court from time to time. The petitioner, which is a party to the batch of cases, has suﬀered the judgments, which are binding on it. In the face of the unequivocal directions contained in the judgments referred to above, it is idle for the petitioner to plead that initiation of fresh acquisition proceedings without a fresh requisition issued by it is illegal. If the petitioner feels aggrieved by the directions issued by this Court, the only remedy available for it is to question the said judgments, which it has indeed done. Unless the petitioner is successful in challenging the said judgments, it cannot act contrary to the directions issued by this Court. For the above-mentioned reasons, the Writ Petition is dismissed with liberty to the petitioner to pursue the remedies already availed by it against the above-mentioned Division Bench Judgment. As a sequel, WPMP.No.37704 of 2011, ﬁled by the petitioner for interim relief, is disposed of as infructuous. ______________________ (C.V.Nagarjuna Reddy, J) 17th November, 2011 LUR