Case: B.E.M.L. Employees House Building Co-operative Society Ltd Vs. State of Karnataka and Ors

2. The appellant is a cooperative society of the employees of a public sector company known as Bharat Earth Movers Limited in Bangalore. The appellant society moved the State Government for acquisition of land for the purpose of construction of residential houses for its members. The State Government decided to acquire a large tracts of land inclusive of land in Survey No. 11 of Thubarahalli Village, Verthur Holli, Bangalore South Taluka. We are only concerned here with fifth Respondent (G. Ramaiah Reddy), whose land to an extent of 1 acre 30 guntas in Survey No. 11 was also acquired by the Notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter called the Act) issued on 26.3.1990. Several land owners including the fifth Respondent filed objections to the proposal of acquisition of their lands. One of the grounds urged by the fifth Respondent was that he had put up houses on his land proposed to be acquired and also that he had sunk a bore well on it. An enquiry was held under Section 5A of the Act by the Special Land Acquisition Officer (SLAO) after which the SLAO submitted a report. As far as the land of the fifth Respondent is concerned the SLAO reported:Houses with ACC roofing have come up to the extent of 1 acre and 24 guntas and is located in the western side of the proposed layout and is at the end of the same. Hence, if this part is dropped from the acquisition it would not disturb the layoutThe SLAO, however, overruled the objections made by the fifth Respondent with regard to acquisition of his land in Survey No.22/3. In the said report the SALO had made similar recommendations for deleting certain other lands from acquisition. When the notification under Section 6 was published on 15.8.1991, it was found that the State Government had accepted the recommendations of the SLAO for exclusion from acquisition of several other lands, but not with regard to the land of the fifth Respondent situated on Survey No.113. Fifth Respondent and five other land owners challenged the acquisition by writ petitions filed before the High Court of Karnataka. Fifth Respondents writ petition was W.P.3057 of 1992. Although, a number of contentions were urged in support of the writ petitions, it is not necessary to deal with them as the learned Single Judge who heard the writ petitions rejected all the contentions except the one based on Article 14, urged in Writ Petition No.3057/1992 by the present fifth Respondent. Consequently, the learned Single dismissed all the writ petitions except writ petition No. 3057/1992 filed by the fifth Respondent which came to be allowed and the acquisition which was the subject matter of the said writ petition was quashed in toto4. The present appellant challenged the judgment and order of the learned Single Judge by writ appeal No.67 of 1997. The Division Bench dismissed the writ appeal and upheld the judgment of the learned Single Judge. Hence, this appeal.

Reasoning: 5. A perusal of the judgment of the learned Single Judge indicates that the challenge to acquisition proceedings based on several grounds were negatived and, thus, six out of the seven writ petitions failed. As far as the present Respondent No.5 is concerned, the learned Single Judge upheld the challenge as he found that the State Government had accepted and acted upon the Land Acquisition Officers report under Section 5A of the Act for dropping the acquisition proceedings in respect of several similarly situated cases, but only in the case of the fifth Respondent, despite a recommendation to drop the acquisition proceedings, the Government had gone ahead with the acquisition proceedings. No plausible reasons for such discriminative action against the fifth Respondents land were placed on record9. The learned counsel for the appellant alternatively argued that even if the fifth Respondent succeeded in establishing discrimination in his case, the High Court was not justified in quashing the preliminary notification under Section 4(1) of the Act. He reiterated the argument that, at the most, the final notification could have been quashed and the authorities under the Act directed to proceed afresh from the stage of submitting a report under Section 5A of the Act. He also contended that the report under Section 5A had not been accepted, as the Revenue Secretary had made a spot inspection and decided not to agree with the report of the Land Acquisition Officer. As we have already pointed out, we have no material placed on record to show as to what really moved the Revenue Secretary or the State Government to overrule the recommendations of the Land Acquisition Officer only with respect to the land of the fifth Respondent. Nor, are we impressed by the argument that only the final notification had to be quashed and the matter be remitted to the authorities below. Once it is held that the action was discriminatory and hit by Article 14 of the Constitution of India, then the High Court was justified in quashing the whole proceeding, including the notification under Section 4(1), as prayed for by the fifth Respondent.