10 September 2004
Supreme Court
Download

B.E.M.L.EMPLYS.HOUSE BLD.CO-OP.SO.LTD. Vs STATE OF KARNATAKA .

Case number: C.A. No.-006288-006288 / 1999
Diary number: 11648 / 1998
Advocates: Vs P. R. RAMASESH


1

http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 1 of 3  

CASE NO.: Appeal (civil)  6288 of 1999

PETITIONER: B.E.M.L. Employees House Bld.Co-op.Society Ltd.                                     

RESPONDENT: State of Karnataka & Ors.                                              

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 10/09/2004

BENCH: Shivaraj V. Patil & B.N. Srikrishna

JUDGMENT: J U D G M E N T

SRIKRISHNA, J.

       The judgment of the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court  dismissing the writ appeal of the appellant is impugned here.  

       The appellant is a cooperative society of the employees of a public  sector company known as ’Bharat Earth Movers Limited’ in Bangalore.  The  appellant society moved the State Government for acquisition of land for the  purpose of construction of residential houses for its members.  The State  Government decided to acquire a large tracts of land inclusive of land in  Survey No. 11 of Thubarahalli Village, Verthur Holli, Bangalore South  Taluka. We are only concerned here with fifth Respondent                          (G. Ramaiah Reddy), whose land to an extent of 1 acre 30 guntas in Survey   No. 11 was also acquired by the Notification under Section 4(1) of the Land  Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter called ’the Act’)  issued on 26.3.1990.  Several land owners including the fifth Respondent filed objections to the  proposal of acquisition of their lands.  One of the grounds urged by the fifth  Respondent  was that he had put up houses on his land proposed to be  acquired and also that he had sunk a bore well on it.   An enquiry was held  under Section 5A of the Act by the Special Land Acquisition Officer  (SLAO) after which the SLAO submitted a report.  As far as the land of the  fifth Respondent is concerned, the SLAO reported: "Houses with ACC roofing have come up to the extent of  1 acre and 24 guntas and is located in the western side of  the proposed layout and is at the end of the same.  Hence,  if this part is dropped from the acquisition it would not  disturb the layout."                  The SLAO, however, overruled the objections made by the fifth Respondent  with regard to acquisition of his land in Survey No. 22/3.  In the said report  the SLAO had made similar recommendations for deleting certain other  lands from acquisition.  When the notification under Section 6 was  published on 15.8.1991, it was found that the State Government had  accepted the recommendations of  the SLAO for exclusion from acquisition  of several other lands, but not with regard to the land of the fifth Respondent   situated on Survey No. 11.

       Fifth Respondent and five other land owners challenged the  acquisition by writ petitions filed before the High Court of Karnataka.  Fifth  Respondent’s writ petition was W.P. 3057 of 1992. Although, a number of  contentions were urged in support of the writ petitions, it is not necessary to  deal with them as the learned Single Judge who heard the writ petitions  rejected all the contentions except the one based on Article 14, urged in Writ  Petition No. 3057/1992 by the present fifth Respondent. Consequently, the  learned Single dismissed all the writ petitions except writ petition No.  3057/1992 filed by the fifth Respondent which came to be allowed and the  acquisition which was the subject matter of the said writ petition was

2

http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 2 of 3  

quashed in toto.

The present appellant challenged the judgment and order of the  learned Single Judge by  writ appeal No. 67 of 1997.  The Division Bench  dismissed the writ appeal and upheld the judgment of the learned Single  Judge. Hence, this appeal.

       A perusal of the judgment of the learned Single Judge indicates that  the challenge to acquisition proceedings based on several grounds were  negatived and, thus, six out of the seven writ petitions failed.  As far as  the  present Respondent No. 5 is concerned, the learned Single Judge upheld the  challenge as he found that the State Government had accepted and acted  upon the Land Acquisition Officer’s report under Section 5A of the Act for  dropping the acquisition proceedings in respect of several similarly situated  cases, but only in the case of the fifth Respondent, despite a  recommendation to drop the acquisition proceedings, the Government had  gone ahead with the acquisition proceedings. No plausible reasons for such  discriminative action against the fifth Respondent’s  land were placed on  record.   

It is the case of the fifth Respondent that all the cases where Land  Acquisition Officer had recommended dropping of acquisition proceedings  were similarly situated and there was no reasonable ground, whatsoever, for  making a discrimination in his case to continue with the acquisition  proceedings.  It was urged before the learned Single Judge that the State  Government had acted arbitrarily by failure to apply the same yardstick in  respect of the fifth Respondent’s land.  The Division Bench has accepted this  reasoning of the learned Single Judge.

       It was urged by the learned counsel for the appellant that whatever be  the recommendations of the Land Acquisition Officer in his report under  Section 5A, they were merely recommendations and the State Government  was not bound to accept them.  The State Government had wide discretion to  accept or reject the said report under Section 5A of the Act and take  independent decision to continue or discontinue the acquisition proceedings  in respect of any particular land proposed to be acquired.  Wide, the  discretion may be; but, not wild. All exercise of statutory discretion must be  based on reasonable grounds and cannot lapse into arbitrariness or caprice  which is anathema to the Rule of Law envisaged in Article 14 of the  Constitution. The facts placed on record do not indicate that the case of the  fifth Respondent was similar, if not identical, to that of the other land  owners, whose lands were dropped from the acquisition proceedings.   Neither the appellant, nor the State Government has been able to show  us  any rational distinction between the case of the fifth Respondent and the  cases of the other land owners, whose lands were excluded from the  acquisition.  When this is so, it appears to us that the vice of hostile  discrimination infects and vitiates the decision taken by the State  Government to continue with the acquisition against the fifth Respondent’s  land.         A faint argument was made by the learned counsel for the State  Government that inasmuch as the Government’s files had been called for  and perused, there might have been some reason on the file justifying the   non-exclusion of the fifth Respondent’s land from the acquisition  proceedings. It is difficult to accept the suggestion, for if there was any such  reason the High Court would not have struck down the acquisition  proceedings as hit by Article 14 of the Constitution.  In any event, to put the  matter beyond cavil, we adjourned the matter twice to enable the learned  counsel for the State Government to produce the relevant files before us.  Despite the adjournments granted, no such files have been produced and we  were informed that the files are "not traceable".  In this state of record, we  find it difficult to accept the argument of the learned counsel for the State  Government.

       The learned counsel for the appellant alternatively argued that even if  the fifth Respondent succeeded in establishing discrimination in his case, the

3

http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 3 of 3  

High Court was not justified in quashing the preliminary notification under  Section 4(1) of the Act.  He reiterated the argument that, at the most, the  final notification could have been quashed and the authorities under the Act  directed to proceed afresh from the stage of submitting a report under  Section 5A of the Act.  He also contended that the report under Section 5A  had not been accepted, as the Revenue Secretary had made a spot inspection  and decided not to agree with the report of the Land Acquisition Officer.  As  we have already pointed out, we have no material placed on record to show  as to what really moved the Revenue Secretary or the State Government to  overrule the recommendations of the Land Acquisition Officer only with  respect to the land of the fifth Respondent.  Nor, are we impressed by the  argument that only the final notification had to be quashed and the matter be  remitted to the authorities below.  Once it is held that the action was  discriminatory and hit by Article 14 of the Constitution of India, then the  High Court was justified in quashing the whole proceedings, including the  notification under Section 4(1), as prayed for by the fifth Respondent.

       In the result, we find no reason to interfere with the judgment of the  High Court.  

There is no merit in this appeal and the appeal is dismissed.

       No order as to costs.