P L SIVANAPPAN Vs. GOVT OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant applied for assignment of an extent of land on outright sale for putting up a permanent cinema theatre in Bhavanisagar township area. By G.O. Ms. No. 114 Public Works Department, dt. 30-01-1981, the respondent directed alienation of one acre of land S. No. 279 in Bhavanisagar township area to the appellant subject to the collection of double the market value of the land. On 25-6-1981, without assigning any reason, G.O. No. 114 dt. 30-1-1981 was cancelled by the respondent. This obliged the appellant to come to this Court by way of W.P. 5551 of 1981, impeaching the order of cancellation, Padmanabhan J. did not accept any of the contentions advanced on behalf of the appellant seeking interference in writ jurisdiction and the learned single Judge dismissed the writ petition. This writ appeal is directed against the order of the learned single Judge.

(2.) Before us, Mr. V.R. Rajasekharan, learned counsel for the appellant, would submit that the respondent having directed to alienate the land to the appellant and to that effect having passed G.O.Ms. No. 114 dt. 30-01-1981, the respondent acted arbitrarily and capriciously in cancelling that order without assigning any reason therefor. The fact remains that the order of cancellation dt. 25-06-1981 has not set out any reason for cancellation. It is only in the counter-affidavit filed by the respondent, certain reasons are set out for the first time. There is an allegation that the appellant did not comply with G.O. Ms. No. 114 and did not pay the value of the land even though there had been considerable time lapse. Admittedly, no time was prescribed for making the payment and there had been no determination of the value of the land and there was no call upon the appellant to pay the same within the specified time, so that it could be commented and complained that the appellant, did not respond to and comply with such proceedings and discharge his obligations. The process of determination of market value should have been resorted to and completed by the agency of the respondent and the appellant ought to have been called upon to pay the double market value of the land within a specified time, and only if there had been a failure on the part of the appellant to comply with that call, there could be an adverse comment against the appellant in this behalf. Nothing of that sort had happened. There are no records to that effect produced.

(3.) In the counter-affidavit of the respondent there is also an allegation of change in the policy of the Government with regard to outright sale of Government lands to private individuals. Apart from the fact, that this stand has not been expressed in the order of cancellation, no records are produced even before court, to evidence this stand of the respondent. There is also the grievance of the appellant that he had not been put on notice of any of the present allegations of the respondent before the cancellation and he had no opportunity to answer them. It is only in this regard, learned counsel for the appellant would press into service the pronouncement of the Supreme Court in Kasturilal v. State of J. and K., AIR 1980 SC 1992, to say that even in the matter of grant of largess, the State should not act arbitrarily and capriciously and the actions of the State in these matters would be liable to be tested for its validity on the touchstone of reasonableness and public interest. Such is the proposition as recognised by the highest Court of the land in the pronouncement relied on by the learned counsel for the appellant. Even in an earlier pronouncement in Ramana Dayaram Shetti v. International Airport Authority of India, AIR 1979 SC 1628, the highest Court in the land held that Government is still the Government when it acts in the matter of granting largess and it cannot act arbitrarily and it does not stand in the same position as a private individual.