THUMUROUTHU MALLIKARJUNA RAO Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners, whose family is subjected to acquisition of properties for the second time, filed this Writ Petition seeking intervention of this Court by restraining the respondents from perpetrating injustice on them. The family of the petitioners appeared to be once very wealthy in terms of agricultural lands. This appeared to have, obviously, made them a soft target for the respondents to take away their lands whenever they contemplate acquisition. The petitioners have pleaded before respondent Nos. 4 and 5 that during the lifetime of their father as much as Ac. 40-93 cents of land was acquired for providing house sites and that therefore, there is no justification for acquiring further land, which will virtually reduce them to the status of small farmers. In order, dated 26-12-2009, passed by respondent No. 4, disposing of the petitioners' objections, a finding is rendered by him that earlier an extent of Ac. 27-13 cents belonging to the petitioners' family was acquired. Respondent No. 4 has, however, sought to lend some justification in seeking to proceed with the further acquisition of Ac. 3-73 cents for the purpose of provision of house sites to Yeleru Reservoir Project displaced persons of Lakkavaram Village by observing that even after acquisition of the said extent of Ac. 27-13 cents, there was a family partition, during which an extent of Ac. 11-00 cents was given to each of the two sons, i.e., petitioners herein, by their father and that the petitioners are doing business. In their affidavit, the petitioners categorically asserted that they are not doing any business. Petitioner No. l stated that out of the extent of Ac. 11-00, which he has got in partition, he has alienated Ac. 5-00 cents in Survey No. 451/1 on 19-06-2006 to one Alamanda Nooka Raju and others in connection with his sister's marriage. The status of Petitioner No. 1, whose land is now proposed to be acquired, is virtually reduced to that of a small farmer. It is the pleaded case of the petitioners that one Mente Narayanaswamy, who owns Ac. 5-20 cents in Survey No. 449, gave a statement before the Tahsildar, Yeleswaram, that he is ready and willing to part with his land. While referring to this aspect, respondent No. 3, in his order, dated 26-12-2009, has stated that there is a dispute regarding ownership of the said land and that the same is occupied by a third party. With reference to the objections raised by the petitioners that there are several Government lands in various survey numbers such as Survey Nos. 205/1, 205/38-2, 285, 327, 273/3 etc., the said objection was rejected on the ground that an extent of Ac. 58.15 cents in Survey No. 205/1 was already proposed for acquisition for provision of house sites to weaker sections in phase-III Indiramma Programme.

(2.) Now, the question that needs to be addressed in this Writ Petition is, whether the respondents have given a fair treatment to the petitioners' family ?

(3.) Our Constitution has initially recognized the property right as fundamental right. However, by the Constitution (44th Amendment) Act, 1978, with the deletion of Article 31, the property right ceased to be a fundamental right, but, it is, nevertheless, continued to be a constitutional right by shifting the Article 31 out of Part III and reinserting the same as Article 300-A of the Constitution, which mandates that no person shall be deprived of his property save by the authority of law. It is trite that every law should be fair and reasonable and the power exercised under such law shall conform to the mandates of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. A Division Bench of this Court in K. Ramulu vs. State of A.P., 1988 1 APLJ 494 dealt with a more or less similar issue and posed a question, whether by resorting to repeated acquisition of the properties belonging to the same person, the State is not acting contrary to the dictates of Article 14 of the Constitution. This question was answered in the affirmative. It would be instructive to reproduce their Lordships' view expressed in a lucid manner hereunder: