S.ABDUL NAZEER,J. - (1.) "Bangalore was a beautiful city - once" said Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy, in one of his judgments of the year 1987 (B.K. Srinivasan and Ors. v. State of Karnataka and Ors., 1987 1 SCC 658). He went on to say "It was a city with magic and charm, with elegant avenues, gorgeous flowers, lovely gardens and plentiful spaces. Not now. That was before the invasion of concrete and steel, of soot and smoke, of high rise and the fast buck. Gone are the flowers, gone are the trees, gone are the avenues, gone are the spaces....." Indeed, Bangalore was a beautiful city. It had luscious gardens, beautiful lakes, well-laid roads, plenty of open spaces and wonderful weather throughout the year. It was one of the most beautiful cities in the country. It was rightly called the "Garden City" and a "Pensioner's Paradise". These are things of the past. The city's environment is degraded so much and so fast that the time will not be far away for us to say "once upon a time Bangalore was a beautiful city." Traffic jams, over-crowding, haphazard constructions, dying lakes, destruction of the flora, shrinking of lung spaces etc have become the order of the day. Its clear cool foggy air has turned into grey smoke and brown dust. All this has happened in the name of development. Of course, the development in today's time comes at a cost that the city of Bangalore has very dearly paid. What is lost has already been lost and no amount of work or effort can bring back the glorious garden days of Bangalore. The only thing that can be done and must be done is to at least wake up now, meticulously plan and develop the city in order to maintain whatever little is left of the old Bangalore city and develop the ever-growing city on the broad lines of the glorious days of the past.
(2.) Keeping the above in mind as a blue print, let us come to the facts of this case.
(3.) The appellant is a society registered under the Karnataka Co-operative Societies Act 1959, with the objective of inter alia acquiring lands for formation of house sites and for distributing the same to its members. The appellant had requested the State Government to acquire an extent of 100 acres of land in Nagarabhavi Village, Yeswanthapura Hobli, Bangalore. In the year 1982, the State Government accorded sanction for initiation of proceedings for acquisition of 78 acres 16 guntas of land for the benefit of the appellant. It appears that even before the initiation of acquisition proceedings, Vijayanagar Industrial Workers Housing Co-operative Society Ltd had approached the appellant with a representation that it had already entered into an agreement dated 06.11.1982 with respondent No.3 to purchase the entire extent in Survey No.30, of which she claimed to be the owner. Accordingly, the said society requested the appellant to withdraw its request for acquisition of the said land. This is evident from the agreement at Annexure P1 entered into between the 3rd respondent and the said society. Under the said agreement, out of the total sale consideration of Rs.50,000/- per acre, respondent No.3 had received a sum of Rs.25,500/- and had parted with possession of the land in favour of the said society and stated that she had no objection to the land being acquired by the State Government.;