Land acquisition | Rs 10L fine imposed on 6 petitioners for concealing facts, misusing legal procedures

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has imposed a cost of Rs 10 lakh on six petitioners for concealing facts and misusing the legal procedures in a land acquisition case. Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that the present plea was the ninth petition on the same cause of action, with the very prayer however worded differently.

The dispute was about the legal representatives of Venkata Bhovi and Hanumantha Bhovi, who received two acres and 20 guntas of land in Nagadevanahalli village through an official memorandum dated January 9, 1979. The Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore, had granted them ownership after recording their names in revenue records.

The land was acquired with a final notification on January 22, 1987 and the compensation was fixed at Rs 65,000 per acre, in addition Rs 15,000 per acre for solatium and interest on June 6, 1987. The award amount was also deposited on October 9, 1987. After the death of Venkata Bhovi, his legal heirs moved representations seeking to remove the property from acquisition. The petitioners cited a draft notification under Section 48(1) of the Land Acquisition Act from April 23, 1993.

Justice Nagaprasanna noted that the argument placed by the petitioners relied on a previously unmentioned 1993 notification. And, this revelation had come after eight rounds of litigation.

“What I witness is, not the pursuit of justice, but a game of judicial hide and seek, where one of the family members of the grantee seeks invocation of the writ jurisdiction, while the other member, hides. Later, the other member seeks, and the former hides. Such cynical use of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, must be arrested in its tracks,” the court said.