Bagalkot HC: Displaced B-Site Allottees’ Requests for Larger Sites Must Be Considered Without an Owner-Tenant Priority Divide

In W.P. No. 103959/2023, the petitioner’s property was acquired for the Upper Krishna Project. After receiving a ‘B’ category site, he sought an ‘E’ category site.

The Rehabilitation Officer rejected his request, including on the ground that he was an unauthorised occupant and had already received a ‘B’ category site.

In the connected petition, the petitioner’s property was also acquired; the Authority allotted him a ‘B’ category site and issued a Hakkupatra. He later sought an ‘E’ category site, but his request was not considered.

Both petitioners challenged the Authority’s treatment of their claims under the Bagalkot Town Development Authority (Allotment of Sites) Rules, 1993 (“Rules 1993”).

The Court applied Rule 2(g) of the Rules 1993, which defines “displaced person” to include qualifying persons residing in, or occupying as tenants, property in the submergible area; the definition does not distinguish owners from tenants or other qualifying occupants.

Rule 3 prescribes the categories of sites, while Rule 4 and its explanation address allotment to displaced families and the treatment of qualifying major children as separate families.

Under Rule 4(4), priority is given first to project-displaced families, second to deemed separate families, and third to migrants and others; it does not create separate priority classes for owners and tenants.

The Court also relied on the interpretive principle that courts should not add to or substitute language in a statute where its terms are plain, and considered Cable Corporation of India Ltd. v. Additional Commissioner of Labour, (2008) 7 SCC 680, on the ordinary meaning of “or” and “and”.

The Court read the Rules as treating qualifying displaced families as the relevant first-priority class, without differentiating between families displaced as owners and those displaced as tenants or occupants.

The Authority’s reliance on the petitioners’ alleged unauthorised-occupant status, or on their prior allotment of ‘B’ category sites, did not identify a basis in the Rules for excluding them from consideration for a change of category. The Court therefore held that the Authority could not create an additional “unauthorised occupant” class not provided for by the Rules.

Because the petitioners had already received ‘B’ category sites, the directed inquiry was limited to their entitlement to a change of category, assessed in the prescribed order of priority; the Authority was not to reopen whether they were displaced persons or members of displaced families.

It directed the Authority to consider the petitioners’ requests for ‘E’ category sites in accordance with Rule 4(4), and to consider their claims based on deemed or construed separate families of major children under Rule 4’s explanation.

The Authority was directed to complete the exercise within eight weeks of receiving the certified copy of the order.

The order directs consideration of the requests; it does not itself grant the petitioners ‘E’ category sites.