JANAPAREDDY VENKATESWARA RAO Vs. DISTRICT COLLECTOR ELURU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Government Pleader for Social Welfare took notice for the respondents. Writ Petition was heard finally.

(2.) The subject land is sought to be acquired by the State for the publicpurpose, to wit, for providing house sites to the weaker sections of the Society like Dalits and other backward classes, by invoking urgency clause under Sec.l7(4) of the Land Acquisition Act. The learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner assailing the acquisition proceedings would contend that there was no urgency on the part of the State to invoke urgency clause under Sec.l7(4) of the Act; that the petitioner is a cultivating tenant of the land belonging to the temple and therefore without his consent the State ought not to have proposed to acquire the subject land; that there are alternate lands owned by the Government of India and certain others, and therefore there was no justification for the State to choose the subject land for acquisition; and that the subject land would cost very heavily on the State exchequer and the State would have acquired alternative land at a lesser cost and therefore the acquisition is not in the public interest. The judgments of the Supreme Court in Chameli Singh vs. State of U.P. and Union of India vs. Praveen Gupta are the authorities to state that when the State proceed to acquire the land for providing house sites to the weaker sections of the society there is always an element of urgency and that urgency would subsist till the housing problem of those sections of community is solved. Added to this the Supreme Court in Union of India vs. Praveen Gupta opined that the decision of the Government on the question of urgency is an administrative decision and a matter of subjective satisfaction, and the Government need not record reasons in reaching the satisfaction, and that satisfaction cannot lightly be interfered with by the Court unless in a given case, it is shown that the exercise of eminent domain power is nothing short of colourable exercise of power. That is neither the pleading nor the contention in the instant case.

(3.) The second contention of the learned Counsel for the petitioner isrequired to be noticed only to be rejected. The Government Order G.O.Ms. No.776, Revenue (Endowments.II) Department, dated 29-9-1995 does not require the State authorities to obtain the consent of the tenants before acquiring the land in their possession. Alternatively, it should be said that the very concept of compulsory land acquisition pre-supposes that the State is armed with necessary power which is called 'eminent domain' power to acquire the lands for public purpose compulsorily, that is to say, without consent or assent of the land owners.