GURUSHIDDAWWA VIRASANGAYYA SHIVAPPANAMATH Vs. STATE OF MYSORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At the instance of the Hubli Municipal Borough which has now become the Hubli-Dharwar Municipal Corporation, a preliminary notification was made by the Government of the new State of Mysore on March 14, 1960 under S. 4 of the Land Acquisition Act (Central Act I of 1894) stating that 21 lands in the village of Unkal in the District of Dharwar were likely to be acquired for a public purpose, namely, for a timber depot. A declaration under S. 6 that the lands were required for a public purpose was made on September 11, 1963.

(2.) The three petitioners before us who are the owners of one of the lands proposed to be acquired bearing resurvey No. 37 measuring 3 acres and 8 guntas question these proceedings and ask us to quash the preliminary notification under S. 4 and the declaration under S. 6. The grounds on which this challenge is made are these:

(3.) Before considering the validity of these submissions, it should be mentioned that in the village of Unkal which was in the State of Bombay before its inclusion in the State of Mysore under the States Reorganisation Act, the relevant law operating until August 16, 1961 was the Central Land Acquisition Act as amended by the Legislature of the State of Bombay from time to time. On August 16, 1961 that Central Act which was amended by the Legislature of the State of Mysore by Mysore Act XVII of 1961, began to operate in the whole of the new State of Mysore, with the result that the law operating in the village of Unkal was no longer the Central Act as amended by the Legislature of the State of Bombay. The relevance of the amendment made of the Central Act by Mysore Act XVII of 1961 consists of the fact that S. 6(1) of the Central land Acquisition Act, which will be referred to as the principal Act, was amended by deletion of the proviso to that sub-sections which incorporated a prohibition that no declaration under S 6 could be made by the appropriate Government unless it was satisfied that the compensation to be awarded was to be paid by a company or wholly or partly out of the public revenues or some fund controlled or managed by a local authority.