Judgement

HIDAYATULLAH, C.J.I. : These appeals by special leave are against a common judgment of the High Court of Mysore, March 3, 1961, allowing a batch of writ petitions. By the order now impugned, the High Court had quashed two notifications issued under Sections 4 and 6 of the Mysore Land Acquisition Act,1894 and published in the Mysore Gazette dated May 7, 1959 and October 15, 1959, respectively, and restrained the State Government from acquiring the land affected by the said notifications. The State now appeals.

2. The petitions were directed against the State of Mysore and the Special Land Acquisition Officer, City Improvement Trust Board, Bangalore. In some of the petitions there were other respondents either with or without the Special Land Acquisition Officer. Nothing, however, turns upon the array of the respondents.

3. In Mysore there are two Acts bearing on acquisition of private land for public purposes. The first is the Mysore land Acquisition Act which follows the same scheme as the Land Acquisition Act in force in India. The other is the City of Bangalore Improvement Act, 1945. The latter Act constitutes a Board of Trustees charged with the execution of the Act and in its Third Chapter lays down the duties and powers of the Board and the manner in which improvement schemes are to be effectuated. Sections 14 to 18 and Section 27 outline the procedure by which acquisition of land is to be made. Section 52 of the Act lays down that any provision of law contained in any other enactment in force in Mysore repugnant to any provision contained in the Improvement Act is to stand down to the extent of the repugnancy. The Mysore Land Acquisition Act has also Sections 4, 5A, and 6 analogous to the corresponding sections in the Central Land Acquisition Act in force in the whole of India.

4. The land in respect of which the present dispute has arisen is Survey No. 2 of Raja Mahal village, Kasba Hobli, Bangalore North Taluk. This land belonged originally to the Maharaja who divided it into plots. The petitioners who came before the High Court, are owners of some of the plots which were transferred to them by different modes such as sale, gift, etc. These petitioners acquired plots for purposes of their own. Some had made layouts already with the prior sanction of the Board and spent money in laying out the plots including amounts paid out to the Board in this connection. The notification under Section 4 issued for acquisition of these plots stated that they were being acquired for public purposes, to wit Raja Mahal Vilas Layout. A number of petitions were filed in the High Court to question the validity of the action. It was said that the Notification under Section 4 of the Mysore Land Acquisition Act gave no particulars and was followed by the Notification under Section 6 with the result that the opportunity under Section 5A of objecting to the acquisition was lost to the petitioners. It was also contended that the scheme of layout was feasible only under the Improvement Act through the Board of Trustees for the Improvement of the City of Bangalore and the procedure in Chapter III of that Act had to be followed. The acquisition, however was being made entirely under the Land Acquisition Act without any advertence to the provisions of the Improvement Act. It was, therefore, contended that the action of the Government was ultra vires of Section 52 of the Improvement Act and the provisions of the Third Chapter of that Act. It was also submitted that the action in using the provisions of the Mysore Land Acquisition Act was discriminatory because in other cases the provisions of the Improvement Act were applied.

5. The petitions were filed between the last week of December, 1959 and the last week of March, 1960. Before the petitions came up for hearing the Governor of Mysore promulgated on June 9, 1960 an Ordinance called the City of Bangalore Improvement (Amendment) Ordinance (No. 1 of 1960) introducing retrospectively Section 27-