- (1.) A municipality cites its constitutional obligation to assert a preferential right to a piece of land proposed to be sold by a Central Government undertaking. The municipality does not found its claim on legitimate expectation or any facet of estoppel but insists that its inherent duty entitles it to be put on a higher pedestal than petty realtors and complains of the first respondent"s failure to see the point.
(2.) THE first respondent corporation is in the process of selling surplus lands at certain textile units identified as viable and all the land at certain other units which have been found to be unviable. The municipality has eyed a piece of land within its municipal limits that the corporation is in the process of selling as land belonging to the unviable Manindra and Bengal Textile Mills at Cossimbazar in district Murshidabad. The municipality cannot be blamed for setting its sight on the land only upon advertisements being issued by the corporation. It wrote to the chairman of the corporation on November 25, 2003 with a request for the land of the said textile unit which had remained closed for several years prior to 2003. The municipality said that it was striving for all round development of the district town within its limited financial capacity and desired the land at the nonfunctional unit for setting up a housing project thereat. The municipality persisted with its request with letters and reminders.
(3.) THE municipality has relied on a brochure prepared by it on a proposed model township on the approximately 30 acres of land. The brochure speaks of habitation facilities at 78 apartments having 12 flats in each apartment for families belonging to the low-income groups and for erstwhile workers of the mills at low cost. The municipality says that in view of its constitutional obligation and the duties cast on it by the West Bengal Municipal Act, 1993 (the Act), it was incumbent on the corporation to accede to the municipality"s request for release of the piece of land at a fair price. The municipality says that unlike private parties which would be driven by profit motive to bid at higher rates in the expectation of recovering the cost of the land, the corporation should have given due weightage to the municipality"s avowed policy of furthering public cause for a greater social good and the corporation should not have insisted on the municipality lining up with land sharks for the property to be made over to the highest bidder.;