ANNAYYA Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Since elaborate arguments were advanced by the learned counsel on both the sides on the interim order sought for by the petitioners, these petitions are treated as having been posted for hearing and I have heard the learned counsel for the parties.

(2.) In the oridinary course these petitions should have been dismissed on the short ground that the very same preliminary notification was sustained by this Court in W.P. No. 2628/85 disposed of on 14th January 198/. Justice Swami had dismissed the petition filed by one Balappa Reddy who was an owner of the land bearing survey No. 167 of Kodihalli village and the notifications impugned therein is the same notification impugned in these petitions. The decision of the learned Judge was affirmed in Writ Appeal No. 1406/87. But the learned R. 34 counsel for the petitioners in these petitions had raised certain points which according to him were not urged before the learned single Judge in the earlier writ petition and therefore he submitted that the petitioners' case must be considered without reference to the decision of this Court made in the earlier writ petition.

(3.) Since the learned counsel raised certain substantial questions of law in support of his challenge to the impugned notification which had been sustained in the earlier Writ Petition. I had directed the contesting respondents to file their return and I had the benefit of the arguments of their learned counsel also. The three contentions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioners in support of his challenge to the impugned notifications are : 'firstly, that the impugned acquisition proceedings were initiated for the benefit of a company and the contesting respondent admittedly being a company the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act and also the Rules framed thereunder insofar they relate to acquisition of land for companies had not been followed in these cases and therefore the impugned proceedings are bad in law. In support of this contention he relied on two decisions of the Supreme Court in Valjibhai Muljibhai Soneji And Another v. The State of Bombay (now Gujarat) And Others (AIR 1963 SC 1890) and in State of Punjab And Others v. Raja Ram And Others (AIR 1981 SC 1694). Secondly under the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961 the lands in question could not have been acquired by a company as Section 79- B is a total bar for acquisition of land by the companies. Thirdly, that the company for whose benefit the lands were acquired could not have leased the land to third parties and therefore the acquisition proceedings were initiated for some extraneous purposes and not for the public purpose specifically mentioned in the impugned notifications. He submitted that the acquisition proceedings have been initiated for putting up a five star hotel but in the additional statement filed today by the petitioners it is brought to the notice of this Court that the impugned acquisition proceedings were initiated for the benefit of a house building Co-operative Society promoted by one Dayananda Pai. He has also brought to the notice of this Court that some other lands which were acquired under the impugned notifications were transferred to a house building development company known as M/s. Century Galaxy Developers Private Ltd. in terms of the resolution of the B.D.A. in subject No. 1057. This resolution of the B D A was passed in the meeting held on 22nd April 1988. That resolution reads as under :