- (1.) The writ petitioners have questioned the Notification dated July 21 st, 2006, declaration dated August 31st, 2006, and notice dated September 1st, 2006, published, made, and served under Sections 4, 6 and 9(3) & (4) respectively of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The proceedings were initiated by the Section 4 notification for acquiring more or less 41.56 acres of land mentioned in the schedule thereto. It was stated that the land was likely to be needed by Government/Government undertaking/development authorities at the public expense for a public purpose, viz., employment generation and socio-economic development of the area by setting up "Tata Small Car Project".
(2.) The first petitioner submitted its Section 5A objection dated August 1,8th, 2006 claiming that in case of acquisition, it would be interested, in the capacity of owner, in compensation payable for 4.28 acres of land mentioned in the schedule to the notification. It contended that the purpose stated in the notification could not be a public purpose, since the acquisition was for a private company, and that mandatory provisions of law, for acquiring land for a company, were not being followed. It sought release of its land stating that the project it was implementing by setting up an industry with a foreign collaboration was equally (if not more) important from the perspective of public purpose. The collector heard the objector and recorded his views on August 31 st, 2006. Noticing that it was possible to relocate the project of the first petitioner, conceived on an area of 4.28 acres of land, and that the project in connection wherewith the notification had been issued could not be set up just anywhere, that being conceived on an area of more than one thousand acres, he recommended for acquisition of the land in question. On the same the day the declaration under Section 6 was made, and it was published in the official gazette on September 1st, 2006.
(3.) The Section 4 notification has been questioned on the ground that since the acquisition was for a company, the authorities were under the mandatory statutory obligation to follow the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, Part-VII, and the Land Acquisitions (Companies) Rules, 1963, but, admittedly, they were not followed. Counsel has contended that the decision of the State Government to acquire the land at public expense for the benefit of a private company, and not of the public at large, must be held to be vitiated by a colourable exercise of power; that provisions of the West Bengal Land Acquisition Manual, 1991 and the Government orders issued on June 6th, 2006, amending and modifying the provisions of the manual, having not been followed, though mandatory in view of Article 166 of the Constitution of India, it must be held that the acquisition proceedings, and in particular the notification and the declaration, stood incurably vitiated; and that by mentioning about all the stages, from Sections 4 to 11, in the notification the authority virtually left nothing for a due consideration of objections under Section 5A.;