THIRUMALAIAH Vs. STATE OF MYSORE AND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the issue of the Mysore Gazette of May 4, 1961 certain lands claimed by the petitioner were proposed to be acquired for the purpose of a tank whose construction was-considered to be imperative by the Government, on the basis of a report of the Public Works Department through the concerned Divisional Commissioner. By that Notification the Government also directed that the provisions of Section 5-A or the Land Acquisition Act shall not apply.

(2.) In this Writ Petition in which this notification is challenged by the petitioner, two submissions have seen made by Mr. Sreenivasan, his learned Advocate. The first of them is that the provisions of Section 4(1) of the Act have been transgressed inasmuch as in addition to the notice published in the official Gazette, the public notice which the Deputy Commissioner, should have published giving notices of the substance of the notification published in the Gazette,, was not published. The second submission is that this was not a case in which it was within the competence of Government to dispense with the requirements of Section 5-A since the case did not fall within sub-Section (1) of Section 17. It seems to us that both these submissions made by Mr. Sreenivasan are substantial.

(3.) While there is an allegation in the affidavit of the-petitioner that the Deputy Commissioner did not cause public notice to be given as required by the second part of Section 4(1) at convenient places in the locality at which the lands proposed to be acquired were situate, there is no repudiation of this allegation in the counter-affidavit produced on behalf of the State. Nor did Mr. Government Pleader show us any material on the basis of which we could say that this public notice was given. We must, therefore, take it that the public notice required by the second part of Section 4(1) of the Act was not given in this case by the Deputy Commissioner which means, that there was a serious infirmity even at the commencement of the proposed acquisition proceedings.