FRANCIS Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Under the provisions of the Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User Inland) Act, 1962 (for short, 'the Act'), the competent authority is authorised, for the purpose of laying pipelines for transport of petroleum and for such incidental and attended purposes, to take certain specified action as is enumerated in the Act.

(2.) The Gas Authority of India Limited (for short, 'GAIL') proposed a scheme for the purpose of transport of natural gas from Cochin to Mangalore through the Kottanad-Bangalore pipeline route. This pipeline travels through the Madathumpady Village in Thrissur where the petitioner's 67 cents of land is situated. The petitioner asserts that his land is being used by him for personal cultivation and that a part of it houses his residence. He claims that the laying of the pipeline through his property would cause perdition to it and that the compensation paid under the terms of the Act would be of no consequence and would offer no real reparation. He has, therefore, filed this writ petition pleading that the pipeline, that is now proposed to travel through his property, should not be so laid and for directions to the respondents to change the alignment of the pipeline so as to ensure that it goes through other wetlands and paddy fields without having to touch residential properties like that of the petitioner.

(3.) The petitioner's assertion is hinged on Section 7 of the Act, which reads as under: