AUGUSTINE KUJUR, S/O. LATE MAHATO ORAM @ KUJUR AND ORS. Vs. STATE OF ORISSA AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition has been filed with a prayer for issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus or any other appropriate writ(s), order(s), direction(s) to the opposite parties to hold a judicial enquiry or any other enquiry to find out whether the benefits of displacement are provided to the actual displaced persons or to the strangers within a time to be stipulated and for a further direction to the opposite parties to provide the benefit of displacement to the displaced persons as per the list prepared in the year 1979 and 1981 by the District Administration.

(2.) THE Petitioners' case in a nutshell is that they have been displaced due to the construction of Mandira Dam Project in order to cater the need of water of Rourkela Steel Plant (for short, "RSP"). To provide benefit of displacement to the actually land affected persons, the District Administration conducted enquiry in the year 1979 and 1981. In the enquiry conducted by the District Administration, a list of 453 persons was prepared in the year 1979 and another list of 1327 persons was prepared in the year 1981. These two lists of the affected persons were supplied to the RSP with a copy to the Collector, Sundargarh and other subordinate officers. Without following the said lists, the benefits have been given to the persons whose names do not find place in the said list and who are not affected by the construction of Mandira Dam. Hence, the present writ petition.

(3.) ACCORDINGLY , the District Administration caused an enquiry and prepared two separate lists, the first of such list was prepared in the year 1979 where the names of 453 persons of different villages were mentioned and the second list was prepared in the year 1981 with the names of 1327 displaced persons of displaced villages. The said list was prepared and finalized with the supervision of the Collector, Sundargarh and Additional District Magistrate, Rourkela. The Officers of the RSP were also present during the course of enquiry. The copy of the said list was duly communicated to the RSP for their information and necessary action. While preparing the said list, name of one person was mentioned against each displaced family. As per the said list, the Tahasildar had issued displaced certificate in favour of one person out of one family although in one family there were more than one male members available for employment. The names found place in the said lists prepared by opposite parties have been ignored and benefits have been given to the persons, who have not been identified in the enquiry and are out of list prepared by the opposite parties. Though the displaced persons have appraised this fact to the opposite parties, they are not taking any action.