A Court May Require Consideration of an Acquisition Representation, Not Mandate Acquisition Proceedings.

The respondents, landowners and occupants from villages in Vijayapura District, alleged that structures on their properties were demolished during the widening of NH-218 (New)/NH-50 in October 2018 without prior notice or acquisition proceedings.

They had sought acquisition and compensation, but the authorities had not acted on their representations.

In the underlying writ petitions, the Single Judge directed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to initiate acquisition proceedings and determine compensation.

NHAI appealed, arguing that the positive direction to acquire land was contrary to Kolhapur Municipal Corporation v. Vasant Mahadev Patil.

The landowners also filed contempt petitions alleging non-compliance with the writ orders.

1. Whether the Single Judge was justified in directing NHAI to initiate acquisition proceedings and pay compensation, rather than directing it to consider the landowners’ representations in accordance with law.

2. Whether the connected contempt petitions survived for consideration after the writ appeals were decided.

The Court relied on Kolhapur Municipal Corporation v. Vasant Mahadev Patil (Dead) Through Legal Representatives, (2022) 5 SCC 758, particularly paragraph 36, which held that a resolution or budgetary provision alone does not constitute the statutory steps required to acquire land under Section 127 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act.

Applying that authority, the Court concluded that the writ court could direct the authority to consider the representation and pass an order according to law, but the positive direction to initiate acquisition proceedings was not justified in the circumstances.

The petitioners’ reliance on Article 300A of the Constitution and the National Highways Act, 1956, and the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, was recorded, but the Court did not decide the underlying entitlement to acquisition or compensation.

The Court accepted that NHAI had widened the highway and demolished structures in the process, and that the landowners’ representations had not been considered.

However, it held that those circumstances did not warrant a direct judicial command to commence acquisition proceedings.

Relying on Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, the Court considered the appropriate relief to be a direction requiring NHAI to address the representations and make an order in accordance with law, leaving the parties’ substantive contentions open.

NHAI was directed to consider the representations and pass an appropriate order in accordance with law within one month of receiving a copy of the appellate order.

All other contentions were kept open.

In view of the disposal of the appeals, the contempt petitions were held not to survive; they were dropped and notice was discharged.