NADEERA Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Contending that it will be illegal to acquire more extents of properties than what is actually mentioned in the notification under S.4(1) and seeking appropriate directions restraining the respondents from acquiring the petitioner's property in excess of the extends mentioned in the said notifications, the petitioner prays for quashing the entire acquisition proceedings. The petitioner also prays for directions regarding expeditious disposal of Ext. P4 representation submitted before the 4th respondent, the Deputy Chief Engineer (Construction), Southern. Railway, the requisitioning authority. According to the petitioner Ext. P2 is the individual notice received by her under S.4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act. According to her, the extent of the property which is proposed to be acquired as per Ext. P2 is only 0.180 hectares. Ext. P3, the petitioner submits is the true copy of the representation which was filed by her before the Assistant Executive Engineer (Construction), Southern Railway when she received Ext. P2. The petitioner avers that on her land mentioned in Ext. P2, she is constructing a residential building for herself and the said land is part of the only property belonging to her. According to her, When she found that there was no response whatsoever to Ext. P3, she submitted Ext. P4 representation before the 4th respondent and as she was awaiting favourable action by that respondent on Ext. P4, the second respondent land acquisition officer issued Ext. P5 award notice to the petitioner. According to her, Ext. P5 notice under S.12(2) of the land acquisition act came by way of surprise to her. She states that award is not passed in respect of 0.0471 hectares of land which is about 4 times the land mentioned in Ext. P2 earlier notice. According to her, she had no previous notice regarding the proposal to acquire this much of land from her possession and therefore the very award is illegal. On the various grounds raised in the writ petition she contends that the award is illegal and irregular and seeks the reliefs which I have already mentioned hereinbefore.

(2.) A counter affidavit is filed on behalf of the Land Acquisition Officer, the second respondent. The 4th respondent has filed a counter affidavit as well as an additional counter affidavit. The petitioner has filed a reply affidavit.

(3.) Going by the counter affidavit filed by the land acquisition officer the award is already passed in respect of the petitioner's property mentioned in the award. Award has been passed after complying with all statutory formalities such as publication of the notification under S.4(1) and the award enquiry under S.9(3). According to the counter affidavit, since no objections were filed to the individual notice send to the petitioner under S.4(1) the enquiry under S.5A was unnecessary and hence dispensed with. It is contended that the petitioner's husband P. Muhammed represented the petitioner during the award enquiry and since he was not able to produce any document to establish the petitioner's claims over the property the compensation amount is now ordered to be kept under revenue deposit. It is to be noted that the ' counter affidavit submitted by the land acquisition officer does not answer the grievance specifically highlighted by the petitioner that there is considerable variation between the extent of the petitioner's property mentioned in the notice under S.4(1) and the extent mentioned in the subsequent papers including the award.