Madras HC Quashes Check-Dam Acquisition Declaration For Four Landowners Over Missing Notices, Requires Individual Notice To Revenue-Recorded Owners

The petitions concerned land acquisition for construction of a check dam across the Elumitchaiyaru River at South Kallidaikurichi Part-2 Village.

The petitioners, who claimed to own and cultivate the affected lands, challenged the Government’s administrative sanction and subsequent acquisition proceedings, including the Section 19 declaration and a communication concerning their objections.

The respondents maintained that notice had been served on David Koil Pillai, while conceding that individual notices had not been served on the petitioners in W.P.(MD) Nos. 27405 and 27406 of 2026.

The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 distinguishes between the general preliminary notification under Section 11 and the hearing of objections under Section 15; Section 19 provides for the final declaration after consideration of objections.

The Court held that, read with Rules 13 and 14 of the Tamil Nadu Rules, 2017, Section 11 does not require individual notice, but the Section 15 enquiry requires individual notice to affected landowners whose names appear in the revenue records.

This requirement was grounded in the right to notice and the right to be heard as facets of the Article 300-A right to property, identified in Kolkata Municipal Corporation v. Bimal Kumar Shah, (2024) 10 SCC 533.

The Court also relied on P.C. Thanikavelu v. Special Deputy Collector for Land Acquisition, AIR 1989 Mad 222, and Ravisam v. Government of Tamil Nadu, 2020 (2) CWC 210, concerning individual notice and a meaningful hearing in land acquisition proceedings.

The Court found that notice for the Section 15 enquiry had been sent to David Koil Pillai’s Pune address and received there; because he did not dispute the postal acknowledgment or address, service was treated as proper, notwithstanding the dispute over whether his farm manager was authorised to represent him.

By contrast, the respondents produced no proof of individual service on the petitioners in the other two petitions, and the Additional Advocate General conceded that no such notices had been served.

Applying its interpretation of Section 15 and Rule 14, the Court held that general publication could not substitute for individual notice to those petitioners.

The Court rejected the challenge based on the alleged absence of a Social Impact Assessment because the record showed that a study had been conducted.

It also held that the challenged communication was not an order rejecting objections: the objections were made after the Section 19 declaration, when the acquisition authority had no power to consider them.

W.P.(MD) Nos. 27405 and 27406 of 2026 were partly allowed: the Section 19 notification dated 26 November 2025 was quashed insofar as it concerned those petitioners, and the respondents were permitted to resume the acquisition proceedings from the Section 15(2) enquiry stage after serving them individual notices.

The connected miscellaneous petitions were closed, with no order as to costs.