B. N. Srikrishna, J. - (1.) The judgment of the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court dismissing the writ appeal of the appellant is impugned here.
(2.) The appellant is a co-operative 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 SALO 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.
(3.) Fifth Respondent and five other land owners challenged the acquisition by writ petitions filed before the High Court of Karnataka. Fifth Respondents 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 Judge 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 quashed in toto.;