D RAMAPPA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By consent of Counsel for parties, these Writ Petitions are treated as having been posted for final hearing and I have heard the learned Counsel for the parties.

(2.) This is the third round of litigation between the parties. Earlier, the State Government had passed an order on 3-4-1979 directing that Millaghatta tank should be breached and that the tank bed measuring 27 acres and odd should be transferred to the Shimoga Municipality, free of cost, for the formation of sites to be distributed among the poor people. This order was challenged by the petitioners and some other Achkatdars in Writ Petitions Nos. 6527 to 6536 of 1979. When the said Writ Petitions came up for final hearing on 20-6-1979, the Government Pleader, on behalf of the Government, had filed a memo stating that the Government would withdraw the impugned Government order and accordingly, the Writ Petitions did not survive for consideration. However, under the instructions of the State Government, the Deputy Commissioner issued a notification under S.4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act on 8-4-1980 notifying its intention to acquire portions of nine Survey numbers in the command area of Millagatta village belonging to the 7th petitioner and some other Atchkatdars, on the ground that the same were required for the purpose of excavating a 'draft canal'. Necessary declaration under S.6 of the Land Acquisition Act was made on 13-1-1982 and the final notification was published in the Karnataka Gazette dt. 28-1-1982. The 7th petitioner, that is, petitioner in W.P. 5377/87 and the brother of the 3rd petitioner (petitioner in W.P. 5373/87) and two others filed W.P. Nos. 19171 to 19174 of 1982 and these Writ Petitions, it is not disputed, are still pending consideration by this Court. However, those petitioners had the benefit of an interim order staying their dispossession from the land in question. Now the grievance of the petitioners is that the State Government having failed to acquire these lands in the earlier two attempts have now thought upon and engineered the scheme of acquiring these lands by having recourse to the Karnataka Improvement Boards Act, 1976 ('the Improvement Act' for short). Accordingly, a scheme was sought to be framed under the Improvement Act and under that scheme, under the guise of providing sites to the persons belonging to the weaker sections of the community in Shimoga city, the State Government as well as the City Improvement Board, the 2nd respondent are now trying to dispossess the petitioners from their valuable lands which are agricultural lands and thereby they are going to the deprived of their main source of livelihood. Their grievance is that the valuable rights conferred on them under the Land Acquisition Act were sought to be taken away with ulterior motives.

(3.) A similar matter came up for consideration before this Court from the Davanagere Municipality in Writ Petitions Nos. 12173 to 12176 of 1984. There also, a scheme prepared under the Improvement Act by the City Improvement Board of Devanagere was challenged by the petitioners on various grounds inclusive of Art.14 of the Constitution. This Court, on consideration of the relevant provisions of the Improvement Act and also the provision of the Land Acquisition Act, and particularly the challenge to the constitutional validity of provisions under Ss.15, 16 and 18 of the Improvement Act, sustained the validity of the acquisition, proceedings, initiated under the Improvement Act. The decision of this Court was also affirmed in appeal and by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, learned Counsel for the petitioners have not challenged the constitutional validity of the provisions under Ss.15, 16 and 18 of the Improvement Act. However, they have sought to challenge the validity of the acquisition proceedings on various factual grounds, namely, that some of the petitioners, that is, petitioners 2 and 3 had no notice of the acquisition proceedings initiated under the Improvement Act : that the declaration made by the Government sanctioning the Scheme as prepared by the 2nd respondent- Board is hit by the provisions of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Planning Act') inasmuch as the permission of the authorities under the Planning Act was not obtained by the State Government before it made the declaration under S.18 of the Improvement Act : that there was inordinate delay in making the final declaration and therefore, such a declaration should not be allowed to stand in the eye of law and the petitioners who are primarily agriculturists are entirely depending for, their livelihood on these agricultural lands and, therefore, this Court should interfere with the impugned acquisition proceedings. They also relied upon the decisions of this Court reported in ILR (1986) 1 Kant 820 and ILR 1987 Kant 1260.