VIJAY KUMAR Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CERTAIN vital facets of the law relating to Section 11-A of the Land Acquisition Act have arisen in this appeal and we shall briefly indicate the factual background that has given raise to the controversy. One Sangramappa was the original owner of Servey No. 41 of Jangal Koi Extension, Bidar City ad measuring 27 Acres 26 Guntas. This land along with certain others was notified for acquisition and the S. 4 (1) notification was issued on 3. 3. 1982. The final notification or declaration was issued on 8. 11. 1983. The provisions of S. 11-A of the Land Acquisition Act mandates that the award is required to be made within a period of two years from the date of the final notification which in this case only ended on 8. 11. 1985. The award in question has in fact been made on 22. 7. 1997. The legal heirs of Sangramappa who had long since expired on 14. 10. 1990 filed WP. 2140/1999 before the learned Single Judge challenging the validity of the acquisition of this Survey No. i. e. Survey No. 41 on two grounds. Firstly, they contended that the authorities had never issued any notice to them in respect of this acquisition and that the notice question had been issued to three other persons namely, Adveppa, Kantappa and Sharanappa. The reason for this was because as early as on 3. 4. 1972 the Revenue Inspector, Bidar Taluk had changed the mutation in respect of this Survey Number by rounding off the original entry and making pencil entries in favour of these three persons. The authorities contended that they were fully justified in having issued the notice to these three persons whose names appear in the record and that they were not obliged to issue any notice to the original land holder Sangramappa because his name had been superceded. The record indicates that several proceedings had been instituted in relation to this dispute concerning the mutation entry which ultimately culminated in the filing of a Writ Petition before this Court and on 27. 1. 1999 this Court quashed the entries in favour of the three persons and remanded the proceeding to the Tahsildar who in turn restored the original entry in favour of the heirs of Sangramappa. It is principally on this basis, that the plea was raised before the learned Single Judge that it was obligatory on the part of the acquiring authorities to have issued notice to the rightful owner namely Sangramappa or his legal heirs and in not having done so, the entire proceeding would be vitiated.

(2.) THE second plea that was canvassed is really the more consequential one namely that the law mandates in acquisition proceedings that under S. 11-A which has been on the statute book since the year 1984 that if the award is not made within two years, the entire proceeding for the acquisition of the lands shall lapse.

(3.) BEFORE the learned Single Judge, the respondents had contended that by virtue of the ratio in Rangaswamys Case reported in I. L. R. 1992 Karnataka 1483 the Division Bench had held that the service of individual notice on the land owner was optional and that consequently, the fact that no notice had been served on Sangramappa or his legal heirs was of no consequence. The learned Single Judge held that since admittedly neither Sangramappa nor his legal heirs could establish that as on the date of the 4 (1) notification i. e. 3. 3. 1982 their names appeared in the revenue records, that consequently, this grievance raised was groundless. The appellants learned Counsel has vehemently submitted before us that in the first instance, by virtue of the order passed by this Court on 27. 1. 1999 the status quo ante is restored and he submits that this fully reinforces his contention that it was obligatory on the part of the authorities to have issued notice to Sangramappa who was very much alive at that point of time. The alternate plea canvassed by him is that assuming that the names of the other three persons had appeared by virtue of Sangramappa s name having been inserted and pencil entries having been made at the very highest, the acquisition authorities could have proceeded on the footing that pursuant to some application a change has been tentatively made in the revenue records but that nothing was yet final because the entries were pencil entries because Sangramappa s name had only been encircled and most importantly because it has not yet been deleted. His submission therefore is that on the state of the record it was self-evident to anybody who checked it that there was some ambiguity with regard to the question as to who precisely was the rightful owner of Survey No. 41 and that consequently, the only safe course of action would have been to issue notice to all the four persons. Mr. Shankar vehemently submitted that in not having issued notice to Sangramappa, the entire proceeding gets vitiated because the subsequent events have clearly established that the pencil entries made were totally unjustified and that consequently, today we are left with a situation in which Sangramappas land and that too measuring a considerable area of over 27 Acres 26 Guntas is sought to be acquired without any notice to him. As a necessary consequence, even the award that has been made holds the other three persons as beneficiaries despite the fact that the records clearly indicate that he was the owner on the appointed date and the injustice according to the learned Counsel gets compounded because of the fact that if the acquisition is finalised, Sangramappa or his legal heirs stand to lose the land and they also would lose the compensation which would go to the three persons who, as the record now establishes had no right, title or interest in the land and who would get the entire compensation by default. The submission is that this would be injustice compounded and that the learned Single Judge was in error in having virtually brushed aside ground No. 1 in the course of hardly five lines.