COMMISSIONER MUNICIPAL CORPORATION OF HYDERABAD AND ADDITIONAL SPECIAL DEPUTY COLLECTOR Vs. R YADAGIRI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad and Additional Special Deputy Collector, Land Acquisition Unit II, Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad, has preferred the instant appeals under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent of the Court against the judgment of the learned single Judge in a proceeding under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Petitioner-respondents have stated that they came to know in the year 1985 that a notification under Section3(l) of the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956 (for short 'the Act") had been published in A.P. Gazette dated 17-2-1983 declaring an area of 9,000 square yards of'Ramaswamy Compound' as slum area. They filed before this Court W.P.No.8359 of 1985 challenging the said notification. The Court dismissed the writ petition on 6-8-1985 observing that the petitioner-respondents could challenge the notification after they received notice under Section 3(2) of the Act. They (petitioner- respondents), however, were served with the notice under Section 3(2) of the Act in August, 1987. They appeared and they filed theirobjections both against the acquisition as well as declaration under Section 3(1) of the Act. According to the petitioner- respondents enquiry in respect of the objections commenced, but reports, upon which the action was intended, had not been furnished to them and while the matter was still to be conclusively heard, the appellant had refused to furnish any such copies or even the information regarding the dates of inspection and contents of reports. They were informed that the enquiry was closed. They have stated as follows:

(2.) The Act has made provisions to obviate the difficulty in providing the basic needs of sewerage, water-supply and road and side- drains in the slum areas, without causing excessive financial strain on the owners of the lands affected and to improve those areas by a declaration under Section 3(1) by the Government that any area is or may be a source of danger to the public health, safety or convenience of its neighbourhood by the reason of the area being lowlying, insanitary, squalid or otherwise, and provided for an enquiry in these words:

(3.) It is seen from the above that on being satisfied the Corporation, which is the authority, that the area comprising the compound aforementioned was a source of danger to the public health, notified the declaration that it was a slum area and although there was delay in proceeding to hold enquiry as contemplated under Section 3(2) of the Act, issued notices to declare the above-mentioned compound as the slum area. It is conceded that the Government has conferred the power to act under Section 3 of the Act to the Corporation. According to the petitioner-respondents the enquiry was abruptly closed and notice of the acquisition of the land was issued thus without providing adequate opportunity of being heard to them. According to the Corporation, the learned counsel who appeared for the petitioner-respondents or the petitioner-respondents themselves made no application for copy of the documents or for inspection thereof and declined to proceed with the enquiry, leaving no option but to close the same and pass the necessary order on the basis of the materials that were then available. One can be, on the above facts, persuaded to think that a fair hearing to the petitioner-respondents or at least adequate hearing to them to present their case had not been given before the enquiry was closed by the appellant. It cannot, however, be suggested that the acquisition, as contemplated under Section 3 of the Act, has to be supplemented by a notification as contemplated under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and after following the proceedings as contemplated under the said Act alone, the acquisition can be effected. List II in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India includes as item 18 Land, that is to say, rights in and over land, land tenures including the relation of landlord and tenant, and the collection of rents; transfer and alienation of agricultural land; land improvement; and agricultural loans; colonization. It is thus within the legislative competence of the State to make laws with respect to land, that is to say, rights in and over land. The Central Act i.e., Land Acquisition Act survives as the law applicable to the States only because Articles 249 to 255 permit such laws to be made by the Parliament or made earlier to survive. Once the State has exercised its legislative power, however, in respect of a subject it is competent to make law, and there is no constitutional infirmity, the same shall prevail. It is not in dispute that the Act i.e., the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Areas) Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956 which is extended by an Amendment Act to Telangana Areas is a valid law made by the State Legislature and to the extent it has taken for slum improvement (acquisition of land) comprised in any slum area, the Land Acquisition Act shall not apply.