MP HC Orders IDA To Reconsider Kumedi Land Release, Finding Unequal Treatment Despite Pre-Scheme Development Steps

The petitioners owned land in Survey Nos. 25/2/5, 25/2/6 and 25/2/7, Village Kumedi, Indore. The Indore Development Authority (IDA) included the land in Scheme No. 139, for which acquisition proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 commenced in 2002. The award was passed on 23 November 2004; possession was taken in 2003 and 2005, and the compensation was deposited by 2008.

The petitioners’ earlier writ petitions seeking lapse under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act were dismissed in 2022, with a direction to provide bank details for payment of compensation.

They later relied on pre-acquisition planning-related records and IDA’s 2010 decision to exclude their land from Scheme No. 169-A, as well as Resolution No. 80 of 2011, to challenge the different treatment of their land in Scheme No. 139.

IDA opposed the petitions, contending, among other things, that the schemes and permissions were not comparable and that no development permission under Section 30 of the 1973 Adhiniyam had been granted for the land in Scheme No. 139.

Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 was the basis of the petitioners’ earlier lapse claim; that claim had already been decided, and the Court treated the present discrimination challenge as distinct.

Section 53 of the Madhya Pradesh Nagar Tatha Gram Nivesh Adhiniyam, 1973 restricts land use and development after publication of a scheme declaration, subject to the statutory exception for development authorised by the Director before that declaration.

Under Article 14, a statutory authority may not treat similarly situated landowners differently without a rational basis.

Hope Plantations Ltd. v. Taluk Land Board, (1999) 5 SCC 590, was relied on for the principle that res judicata does not bar adjudication of a distinct issue not finally decided earlier.

The Court also relied on Indore Vikas Pradhikaran v. Pure Industrial Coke & Chemicals Ltd., (2007) 8 SCC 705, concerning Section 53 and development authorised before a scheme declaration, and on Hari Ram v. State of Haryana, (2010) 3 SCC 621, and E.P. Royappa v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1974) 4 SCC 3, regarding equality and arbitrariness.

The Court held that the earlier proceedings concerned statutory lapse under Section 24(2), whereas the present claim also raised a distinct Article 14 challenge based on IDA’s treatment of the petitioners’ land and records; res judicata therefore did not prevent consideration of that issue.

On the merits, it found that planning-related permissions, diversion, local approvals and records of development pre-dated the acquisition, and that IDA had considered such material when excluding the petitioners’ land from Scheme No. 169-A.

Although IDA distinguished Scheme No. 139 on the ground that no formal Section 30 permission had been produced, the Court considered that development-permission procedures had been initiated and relevant authorities’ opinions obtained, with no evidence that permission had been rejected.

In the Court’s view, IDA had not provided a clear, record-based justification for treating the petitioners differently; its reliance on the absence of a formal permission was a hyper-technical approach that rendered the treatment arbitrary and discriminatory.

It did not declare the acquisition lapsed under Section 24(2); instead, it directed the respondents to consider releasing and keeping outside Scheme No. 139 the petitioners’ lands in Survey Nos. 25/2/5, 25/2/6 and 25/2/7, complete the necessary formalities and, if required, restore possession, preferably within six weeks of receiving a certified copy of the order.