UTTAM CHAND JAIN Vs. GOVERNMENT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By notification, dated 16.09.2011, issued under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short 'the Act'), the Principal Secretary to the Government, Revenue (LA) Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh, notified certain lands for acquisition in connection with SVP National Police Academcy. An extent of Acs.11.03 guntas in Survey No.22(P) is also included in the said notification. The petitioners, who are the owners of the said land, filed the present writ petition questioning this notification on the ground that the State Government has no power or authority to issue the said notification in purported delegated power made by respondent No.3.

(2.) At the hearing, Sri C.Raghu, learned counsel for the petitioners, submitted that the State Government has traced the source of its power to SO.782(E), dated 25.10.1985, of the Union of India, issued in exercise of its power under Article 258(1) of the Constitution of India, where under it has delegated its power of acquisition of the lands needed for the Union of India to the Government of Andhra Pradesh. The learned counsel submitted that Article 258(1) of the Constitution of India empowers the President with the consent of the Governor of a State to entrust either conditionally or unconditionally to that Government or to its officers, functions in relation to any matter to which the executive power of the Union extends. The learned counsel contended that this power of delegation cannot be exercised in relation to the statutory power and that as the acquisition of the land can be made only through exercise of statutory power, the same is not comprehended by the provisions of Article 258(1) of the Constitution of India.

(3.) Opposing the above submissions, the learned Government Pleader for Land Acquisition submitted that the above contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners is no longer res integra. He has placed reliance on the Constitution Bench Judgment of the Supreme Court in Jayantilal Amratlal Shodhan v. F.N.Rana and others, 1964 AIR(SC) 648.