Case: Nagpur Improvement Trust, Nagpur Vs. Ganesh Kulkarni &amp; Others

2. In their petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution, it was alleged that "the petitioner No. 1 on behalf of the petitioners made an application on 1-11-1966 to the respondent No. 1 for abandonment of the land and he also offered to comply with all the conditions and pay development charges, if any, and for permission to convert it for housing purposes." In their application dated November 1, 1966 to the Trust, it was stated that the applicants property or part thereof was not covered by the Improvement Trust Scheme and this could be released from the scheme. It was, therefore, requested that the applicants property or part thereof should be abandoned without acquiring it and that the applicants were ready and willing to comply with the terms which may be imposed by the Improvement Trust in that behalf and were ready to execute an agreement for that purpose.3. It appears that the Improvement Trust wrote to the Land Acquisition Officer, Nagpur, on November 15, 1966 intimating to him that the application for abandonment was under consideration and that the matter would be intimated to him in due course. The Land Acquisition Officer was also requested to stay further proceedings for a period of three months.4. On March 17, 1967 the Land Acquisition Officer passed the following order :"Nothing is heard referring abandonment proposals from the Trust though 3 months statutory period of adjournment as per remi. u/S. 68 is passed."

Court's reasoning:
7. Before an applicant can make an application under sub-section (1) of Section 68 it must be proved that the acquisition of land included in the area comprised in any improvement scheme has been subsequently discovered to be unnecessary for the execution of the scheme. There is no proof of this except that the Trust entertained the application. The reply of the Trust is that by its memo dated November 15, 1966 it merely informed the petitioner that the application had been received and was under consideration.8. We agree with the contention of the learned Advocate-General that this entertainment of the application does not prove that it had been subsequently discovered that the acquisition of the land was unnecessary for the execution of the improvement scheme.9. There is, therefore, no merit in the point.