ARATI BISWAS Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 11th September, 2015 by which the writ application was dismissed and a grievance of the petitioner with regard to the denotification and derequisition of land in question was rejected. The land in question had been requisitioned in the year 1966 under Act II of 1948 and a notice under Section 4(1a) of Act II of 1948 was published in the year 1981. The appellant/petitioner contends before us that the concerned land was used as a public land and provided access to the petitioner's property in Sinthee. There are other similarly situated persons who had used the land for access to their respective properties. According to the appellant, the denotification of the land and the consequential handing over of possession thereof by the L.A. Collector to the private respondent has resulted in the access to the petitioner's premises being seriously impaired and the private respondent has already put up a boundary wall so that the land cannot be used any longer as a thoroughfare.

(2.) According to the petitioner, since the requisition and subsequent acquisition proceedings under ACT II of 1948 were initiated for a public purpose, it cannot suddenly be that the public purpose no longer exists, particularly when the land had been used as a thoroughfare by local residents for a substantial period of time. The petitioner says that the acts of omission on the part of the State should not prejudice the petitioner if the proceedings under Act II of 1948 were not completed for perfecting the acquisition of the land by the State prior to the lapse of such Act on March 31, 1997. The petitioner claims that the State was obliged to take appropriate steps under the amended provisions of Section 9 of the Act I of 1894, as applicable in the State, to complete the acquisition proceedings.

(3.) The learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant has relied upon paragraph 26 of the Division Bench judgment of this Court in the matter of State of West Bengal and Ors. vs. Ganesh Samanta reported in 2015 (1) ICC 843 for the proposition that once the property has vested in the State, the State respondent is not entitled to return of the denotification of the land and is required to conclude the acquisition proceeding from the stage where it lapsed. In that case acquisition proceedings were initiated upon a notification under Section 4(1a) of Act II of 1948 being issued in the 1980s. The writ petition by the land-loser was disposed of by the single Bench, upon noticing that the land had been used by the State and possession thereof could not be returned to the land-loser, with a direction that the acquisition proceedings ought to be completed by the State after issuance of a notice under Section 9(3A) of the Act I of 1894 with liberty to the writ petitioner to claim compensation from the period of dispossession till the date of issuance of the notice under Section 9(3A).