The court ruled that actual physical possession must be established for the State to validly claim ownership under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976, and procedural requirements for notice must be strictly followed.

JUDGMENT :

J.B. PARDIWALA, J.

1. Since the issues raised in both the captioned appeals are same, the parties are also same and the challenge is also to the self-same judgment and order passed by the High Court, those were taken up for hearing analogously and are being disposed of by this common judgment and order.

2. “…..One of the first and highest duties of all courts is to take care that the act of the Court does no injury to any of the Suitors, and when the expression ‘the act of the Court’ is used, it does not mean merely the act of the Primary Court, or of any intermediate Court of appeal, but the act of the Court as a whole, from the lowest Court which entertains jurisdiction over the matter up to the highest Court which finally disposes of the case.” [Privy Council in Alexander Rodger Charles Carnie v. Comproir D’Escompte De Paris, 1871 Law Reports 3 Privy Council 475]

3. These appeals arise from a common judgment and order passed by the High Court for the State of Telangana and Hyderabad dated 03.01.2022 in Writ Appeal No. 665 of 2022 and Writ Appeal No. 670 of 2022 respectively by which both the writ appeals filed by the State came to be allowed thereby setting aside the judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge of the High Court allowing the writ petitions filed by the appellants-herein.

4. The facts giving rise to these appeals may be summarized as under:-

i) M/S A.P. Electrical Equipment Corporation (Now known as ‘ECE INDUSTRIES LIMITED’), hereinafter the appellant is a company engaged in the business of manufacture and sale of power transformers and other electrical equipment. For the purpose of establishing its manufacturing unit, the appellant company had purchased land measuring 1,63,764 (Sq. yards in Survey Nos.74,75,76, 78, 79) (‘Subject Land’) and the same is the subject matter of the present appeals.

ii) The subject land is situated in Fatehnagar Village Balanagar Mandal, Rangareddy District.

iii) Following the enactment of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 (for short, ‘the Act, 1976’), the appellant filed a declaration in Form I under Section 6(1) of the Act, 1976 whose declaration was taken up as C.C. No. 10571 of 1976 by the special officer and competent authority of urban land ceiling department for utilization of excess land. The declaration, which covered the appellant’s holdings in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, was duly processed by the authorities.

iv) Lands held by the appellant at Hyderabad are as under:

v) In respect of the Hyderabad holdings, the appellant’s submission led to the issuance of Government Orders, notably GO Ms. No. 1729 (dated 27 November 1982), whereby the exemptions were granted under Section 20(1)(a):-

a. The entire land in Surveys 78 and 79 was exempted on the ground that a factory had been constructed there;

b. A portion of the land in Surveys 74, 75 and 76 measuring approximately 48,859.50 square metres was exempted subject to the condition