After Courts Quashed 2005 Ring Road Acquisition For Her Land, Karnataka HC Quashes BDA’s 2025 Notices Seeking Objections

In brief

The question

Whether the respondent was justified in issuing notices under Section 17(5) of the Act calling for objections to a preliminary notification that had already been quashed, insofar as the petitioner’s lands were concerned, by orders that had attained finality.

The court held

The Court held that the notices dated 20 January 2025 under Section 17(5) were unsustainable.

It also directed

It allowed the writ petition and quashed both impugned notices.

01Facts

The petitioner claimed ownership of two parcels of land at Sakalavara Village, which the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) had proposed to acquire under a preliminary notification dated 12 December 2005 for the Peripheral Ring Road project.

¶ 2–3

In 2011, the BDA resolved to drop acquisition proceedings for lands outside the extent covered by a final notification; the petitioner’s lands were not within that extent.

¶ 4

In 2021, the High Court quashed the preliminary notification and consequential acquisition proceedings insofar as the petitioner’s lands were concerned. The Division Bench affirmed that decision, and the Supreme Court dismissed the BDA’s special leave petition.

¶ 5, 9–12

Despite those orders, the BDA’s Special Land Acquisition Officer issued notices dated 20 January 2025 under Section 17(5) of the Bangalore Development Authority Act, 1976, asking the petitioner to object to the 2005 preliminary notification.

¶ 6

02Issues

i.Whether the respondent was justified in issuing notices under Section 17(5) of the Act calling for objections to a preliminary notification that had already been quashed, insofar as the petitioner’s lands were concerned, by orders that had attained finality.

¶ 8

03Law Applied

Section 17(5) of the Bangalore Development Authority Act, 1976, was the statutory basis cited for the impugned notices requiring objections to the preliminary notification.

¶ 1, 6

A judicial order quashing a preliminary notification and consequential acquisition proceedings in respect of particular land, once affirmed on appeal and left undisturbed after dismissal of a special leave petition, binds the parties and remains operative.

¶ 9–12

The Court also noted that the Division Bench had held that statutory acquisition powers, even where no limitation period is prescribed for issuing a final notification, must be exercised within a reasonable time.

¶ 10

Provisions in the judgment · 1

Bangalore Development Authority Act, 1976 Section 17

04Reasoning

The earlier order expressly quashed the 2005 preliminary notification and all consequential acquisition proceedings insofar as the petitioner’s lands were concerned; that order was affirmed by the Division Bench and the BDA’s special leave petition was dismissed.

¶ 9–12

The 2025 notices nevertheless required the petitioner to object to that same notification. Because the notification no longer had legal effect in relation to her lands, the notices had no subsisting legal foundation and could not be sustained.

¶ 13