ABDUL AZIZ Vs. SHRACHI BURDWAN DEVELOPERS PRIVATE LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Several questions of some importance are raised in this appeal in the application of a statute of colonial origin to a situation involving the modern problem of housing. The answers that will be attempted here may even be irrelevant as the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 has now been replaced by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

(2.) The essential facts have been succinctly narrated in the industrious judgment and order under appeal of February 16, 2017, pronounced after a protracted hearing. At first blush, the opinion expressed in the impugned judgment appears to be a possible view, based on Supreme Court precedents and the appropriate interpretation of the relevant provisions of the Act of 1894. However, the one matter of concern that stands out is the wait that the landlosers have to endure before there is a closure to the matter and they get their rightful dues. The acquisition dates back to 2005 and possession of the land has long been taken over from the erstwhile owners thereof who still wait to receive the due compensation therefor more than a decade and a half later.

(3.) The Burdwan Development Authority, a development authority constituted by the State of West Bengal under the West Bengal Town and Country (Planning and Development) Act, 1979, proposed to acquire large tracts of land around Burdwan town to set up a township and address the problem of housing that residents in an around the historical town faced. Even before the formalities for acquiring the land were set into motion, BDA issued public advertisements inviting expressions of interest in June, 2004 to identify a suitable private partner for developing the satellite township. The terms and conditions of the notice and the agreement executed pursuant thereto need not be gone into in great detail, but it must be kept in mind that the private partner was to bear the cost of acquisition of the land, including the enhancement of the compensation as was to be assessed by the collector. Portions of the land had to be allotted for direct community purposes, including for setting up hospitals and to be earmarked for low-income groups. The proposal of Bengal Shrachi Housing Development Limited, the proforma respondent before the court of the first instance, met with the approval of BDA and, by November of 2004, it was clear that it would be the association of BDA with such proforma respondent that would develop the proposed township. The appellants are vituperative in their vitriolic criticism of how an open-ended and loosely-designed scheme was devised in the guise of a public project to leave the private partner free to charge the enduser ordinary allottee of the plots at such rate as it pleased, for the obvious upfront benefits of those who designed the scheme. But that is an argument of prejudice that must be scrupulously kept at bay, since this is not a public interest litigation nor can it be allowed to degenerate to a platform to insinuate that policy-makers in this country use their success at the elections to infer a divine conferment of the State's resources at their disposal for their personal aggrandisement.