COLLECTOR AKOLA Vs. RAMCHANDRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by special leave is directed against the order of the High Court of Maharashtra quashing the order dated November 20, 1961 passed by the first appellant under Section 5 (1) of the Bombay Land Requisition Act 23 of 1948 as extended to the Vidarbha area by the Bombay Land Requisition (Extension and Amendment) Act 33 of 1959.

(2.) The respondents are the owners of the land in question situate in the village Kasarkhed, District Akola. It appears that in 1959 there were floods in the area which affected the residents living in the gaothan of Kasarkhed. Once again there were floods in 1961 more serious than in 1959 affecting as many as 470 persons whose houses were either washed away or seriously damaged. There was therefore an urgent necessity of rehabilitating those sufferers at some other place where they could build their houses and complete them before the arrival of the next monsoon. In these circumstances the first appellant under power conferred on him by Section 15 of the Act passed the impugned order. The order stated that the lands set out in the Schedule thereto were needed or were likely to be needed for the public purpose, viz., for a new gaothan at Kasarkhed for the victims of floods, the old village site where they lived having been rendered suitable by floods and that it was therefore necessary to requisition the said lands for the said purpose. It is not in dispute that land was needed for settling a new gaothan where the victims of the flood could be resettled. At a later stage the State Government also initiated proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act 1 of 1894 in respect of those very lands and issued a notification under Section 4 thereof. On December 14, 1961 the respondents filed a Special Civil Application in the High Court challenging the validity of the said order on the grounds inter alia that it was passed without giving them an opportunity of being heard, that it contravened Art. 19 (1) (f) and (g) of the Constitution, that the competent authority had no power to invoke the Land Requisition Act inasmuch as the purpose for which it was exercised was of a permanent character, viz., construction of houses and settling a new village site, that the proceedings under the Act amounted to acquisition of lands, that invoking the Requisition Act was not in bona fide exercise of power under the said Act, that though there were more suitable lands for the said purpose the lands of the respondents were deliberately selected as a result of influence exercised by the President of Balapur Municipal Committee, and that there were buildings and a factory situate on the said lands and therefore the procedure laid down in Section 5 (2) of the Act should have been followed. In the return filed by the appellants these allegations were traversed and it was submitted that the order was valid and competent under Section 5 (1) of the Act.

(3.) The High Court allowed the petition and quashed the order. In the opinion of the High Court the purpose for which the impugned order was passed was a permanent purpose viz., establishing a new village site, that since the Act was a temporary Act extended until then up to 1963 and the power to requisition thereunder would inhere to the Government only during the time that it subsisted an order passed for a permanent purpose such as for establishing a village gaothan could not be in the contemplation of the Act and therefore could not be justified as one passed under the Act. The High Court observed:-