The court established that failure to act within statutory timelines for land acquisition results in the lapsing of reservations, allowing landowners to utilize their property.

JUDGMENT :

J.B.PARDIWALA, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. These captioned appeals arise from an order passed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench, dated 09-02-2017 in Writ Petition No.1935/2016 by which the Writ Petition filed by the appellants – herein came to be disposed of reserving liberty for the appellants to take necessary steps as open to them in law.

3. The facts giving rise to these petitions may be summarized as under.

4. The subject-matter of this litigation is a vacant plot of land admeasuring 50,138 sq.ft (46.5 R) in Survey No. 81/3 (New) 3 (old) in Mouza Rajapeth, Amravati, Maharashtra. This plot originally was jointly owned by Smt Akhtar Bano Rashid, Abdul Majid A. Samad & Mohammad Sajid A. Samad (previous owners) respectively, and formed part of the larger plot admeasuring 2.47 Hectare. The property in question is situated within the municipal limits of Respondent No.3 – herein.

5. The erstwhile owners had submitted a lay-out plan for development of 2.47 hectare to Respondent No.3. The Respondent No.3 sanctioned the development plan for the residential area and the remaining area admeasuring 50,138 Sq.ft. was reserved for Government school.

6. On 25-02-1993, a revised development plan for Amravati under the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 (for short “the MRTP Act”) came into effect in which the property was shown as reserved for a private school in favour of the Respondent No.5 vide Reservation No.195. Till 2006, i.e., almost for a period of 13 years, no steps were taken to acquire the property.

7. On 04-07-2006, the original owners served the purchase notice under Section 149 of the MRTP Act on the Respondent No.1 calling upon the said respondent either to acquire the property or to release it from reservation.

8. On 02-01-2007 the Respondent No.1 acknowledged the purchase notice. The Respondent No.1 directed the Respondent No.5 to complete the acquisition proceedings within a period of one year, failing which the reservation in its favour would lapse.

9. On 29-12-2007, the Respondent No.5 requested the Respondent No.7 to initiate proceedings for acquiring the land under Section 126 of the MRTP Act.

10. Till 02-01-2008, no action was taken by the Respondent No.5 to commence the acquisition proceedings within one year of confirmation of the purchase notice.

11. On 13-08-2014, the previous owners issued a purchase notice under Section 127 of the MRTP Act to the Respondent Nos.1,3,4 and 6 respectively requesting them to acquire the land.

12. On 12-06-2015, the Respondent No.6 received the proposal from Respondent No.5 to acquire the land.

13. On 30-12-2015, the petitioner – herein purchased the property from the erstwhile owners for Rs.1.26 Crore.

14. On 16-03-2016, the appellants filed a Writ Petition praying that (a) the Respondent No.5 be directed to deposit the amount of compensation to be paid to the appellants for acquisition under the new Land Acquisition Act, 2017 and complete the acquisition & (b) declare that the reservation had lapsed under Section 49(7) of the Act.

15. On 01-10-2016, reply was filed by the Respondent Nos. 6 and 7 respectively stating that on 12-6-2015, proposal from the Respondent No.5 was received and LAC was registered but till that date the Respondent No.5 had not deposited a single penny with the LAO and the Respondent Nos.6 and 7 had reasons to believe that the Respondent No.5 was not interested in developing the said land.

16. On 13-10-2016, the Respondent No.3 filed an additional claim not disclosed by the appellants in their notice dated 13-8-2014.

17. In such circumstances, referred to above, the petitions filed by the appellants came to be disposed of by the High Court which reads thus:-

Order dated 09-02-2017 reads thus:-

“Heard Shri G.K Mundhada, learned Counsel for the petitioners, Shri N. Rao, learned A.G.P. for respondent nos.1, 2, 4, 6 and 7, Shri R. Darda, learned Counsel for respondent nos. 3 and 4 and Shri S. Ghodeswar, learned Counsel for respondent no.5.