Karnataka High Court quashes land acquisition proceedings for ISRO

Bengaluru: In a relief to a group of landowners, the Karnataka high court has quashed the acquisition proceedings with respect to their lands at Abbachikkanahalli Village and Lalagondanahalli Village, Kasaba Hobli, Devanahalli Taluk, Bangalore Rural District. Their lands were a part of the 81 acres and 39 guntas, acquired by the state government in favour of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to expand its space activities.

The preliminary notification for the acquisition was on January 28, 2010, and the final notification/declaration was on May 30, 2011 while the award for the same was passed on July 19, 2013. The petitioners, two residents of Hyderabad, a few residents of Bengaluru city while the others from Devanahalli taluk, challenged the acquisition proceedings contending that the final notification/declaration was not published within the prescribed period of limitation of one year from the date of the preliminary notification. The stipulated time is prescribed under Section 6(2) of the Land Acquisition Act. It was further submitted that the necessary/requisite enquiry under Section 5A was also not conducted, despite the petitioners filing detailed objections to the preliminary notification.

The state government and the ISRO filed separate statements of objections arguing that that the preliminary notification, Section 5A enquiry, final notification/declaration, and the award were all issued/made in accordance with the law and in terms of the provisions contained in Sections 4, 5A, 6, and 11A of the L.A. Act.

The court procured the original records relating to the acquisition proceedings and noted that the final notification/declaration issued under Section 6 of the L.A. Act was not published within the prescribed period of limitation of one year from the date of publication of the preliminary notification. After perusing the records, Justice SR Krishna Kumar said that the final notification was passed in clear contravention of the provisions contained in Section 5A of the L.A. Act by neither conducting the necessary/requisite enquiry nor assigning valid or cogent reasons.

“The state and ISRO categorically, unequivocally, and unambiguously stated in their statement of objections to the writ petitions that the award was passed on 19 July 2013. Secondly, the date 10 June 2013 was written by hand, as seen from the impugned award, which was said to have been approved on 19 July 2013. Thirdly, the original records submitted to the court indicated that there was neither any corroborative material nor cross-reference to the fact that the award was actually passed on 10 June 2013 and approved subsequently on 19 July 2013. Fourthly, the award notices were issued to the landowners more than one year thereafter, from 15 November 2014 onwards. Lastly, the respondents did not produce any corroborative, legal, or acceptable material to establish that the award was passed on 10 June 2011,” the court said.