R VEERA RAGHAVA PRASAD Vs. DISTRICT COLLECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this batch of cases, the petitioners, besides raising issues specific to their cases, also raised the common issue, viz. , whether the proceedings initiated by respondents for acquiring their agricultural lands without their conversion for non-agricultural use, viz. , house sites, are invalid as being contrary to the provisions of the Andhra Pradesh agricultural Land (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purposes) Act, 2006 (for short "the 2006 Act" ). Therefore, all these writ petitions were heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) BEFORE going into the individual issues raised in these writ petitions, I propose to decide the common issue first.

(3.) IN all these cases, the lands proposed to be acquired are agricultural lands. They are proposed to be acquired for providing house sites to the poorer sections of the Society. In the affidavits filed in support of their respective writ petitions, the petitioners averred that under Section 3 of the 2006 Act, which came into force from 2. 1. 2006, no agricultural land shall be put to non-agricultural purposes, without the prior permission of the competent authority, and that the person, who intends to use the agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, has to make an application to the competent authority for such conversion in the prescribed form by payment of a specified fees. It is further averred that under Section 3 (6) the competent authority may reject the request for conversion by giving reasons. On this premise, the petitioners averred that in the face of the prohibition contained in Section 3 on the use of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes, the impugned notifications, under which the petitioners' agricultural lands are proposed to be acquired, are liable to be declared as illegal.