CHANDRAMANI SAHU Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners, twenty-one in number, have filed this writ application assailing the action taken by the State of Orissa and its functionaries in issuing notifications under Sections 4, 1-7 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act').

(2.) The factual position shorn of unnecessary details is as follows : A notification dated 3-2-1981 was published in the Orissa Gazette Extraordinary on 11-3-1981 notifying intention of the State to acquire 25.904 acres of land for construction of Industrial Estate at village Panakalapalli near Berhampur in the district of Ganjam. On the same day a notification was issued under purported exercise of powers u/S. 17(4) of the Act notifying dispensation of the procedure laid down u/S. 5-A of the Act, by resort to the emergency powers conferred under the said provision. Subsequently a declaration u/S. 6 was made to the effect that the land was required for public purpose. The said notification dated 31-8-1982 was published in the Orissa Gazette Extraordinary on 14-9-1982. The afore described three notifications annexed as Annexures 1, 2 and 3 to the writ application are impugned.

(3.) The main plank of challenge by the petitioners is that issuance of declaration u/S.6 after about one and half years of notification u/ S. 4, clearly establishes lack of any urgency and therefore, the resort to the emergency provision is mala fide and not warranted in the circumstances of the case. The action, therefore, is interdicted and the proceeding itself was rendered otiose. It was also urged with some amount of vehemence that no emergency existed justifying resort to the emergency provisions. On behalf of the State, however, it has been urged that the State and its functionaries having satisfactorily established the desirability of resort to the emergency provisions and having indicated the circumstances for which there was some unintended delay in publication of the notification under Section 6, the actions cannot be faulted.