The amendments made to the Land Acquisition Act by Mysore Act XVII of 1961, including the deletion of the proviso to S. 6(1) and the comprehensive definition of 'public purpose' in S. 3(f), influenced the court's decision and established that the acquisition was for a public purpose, dismissing the writ petition.

( 1 ) AT the instance of the Hubli Municipal Borough which has now become the Hubli-Dharwar municipal Corporation, a preliminary notification was made by the Government of the new State of Mysore on March 14, 1960 under S. 4 of the Land Acquisition Act (Central Act I of 1894)stating that 21 lands in the village of Unkal in the District of Dharwar were likely to be acquired for a public purpose, namely, for a timber depot. A declaration under S. 6 that the lands were required for a public purpose was made on September 11, 1963.

( 2 ) THE three petitioners before us who are the owners of one of the lands proposed to be acquired bearing resurvey No. 37 measuring 3 acres and 8 guntas question these proceedings and ask us to quash the preliminary notification under S. 4 and the declaration under S. 6. The grounds on which this challenge is made are these:

(a) that the acquisition was not made for a public purpose; (b) that the Hubli-Dharwar Municipal Corporation, which will be referred to as the Corporation, made no contribution out of a fund controlled or managed by it to the compensation payable to the owners and so the declaration under S. 6 was impermissible; and (c) that the Corporation was a company within the meaning of the definition of that word in the land Acquisition Act, and so, the acquisition should have been made in adherence to the provisions contained in part VII of the Act and that since admittedly it was not so made, the acquisition was illegal.

( 3 ) BEFORE considering the validity of these submissions, it should be mentioned that in the village of Unkal which was in the State of Bombay before its inclusion in the State of Mysore under the States Reorganisation Act, the relevant law operating until August 16, 1961 was the central Land Acquisition Act as amended by the Legislature of the State of Bombay from time to time. On August 16, 1961 that Central Act which was amended by the Legislature of the State of Mysore by Mysore Act XVII of 1961, began to operate in the whole of the new State of mysore, with the result that the law operating in the village of Unkal was no longer the Central act as amended by the Legislature of the State of Bombay. The relevance of the amendment made of the Central Act by Mysore Act XVII of 1961 consists of the fact that S. 6 (1) of the central land Acquisition Act, which will be referred to as the principal Act, was amended by deletion of the proviso to that sub-sections which incorporated a prohibition that no declaration under S 6 could be made by the appropriate Government unless it was satisfied that the compensation to be awarded was to be paid by a company or wholly or partly out of the public revenues or some fund controlled or managed by a local authority.

( 4 ) IN consequence of the deletion of this proviso which incorporated this prohibition, it became no longer necessary under the principal Act as it stood amended by the principal Act as it stood amended by Mysore Act XVII of 1961 for the Government of the new State of Mysore to be satisfied in a case like the one before us, that towards any part of the compensation the local authority should make a contribution out of a fund controlled or managed by it.

( 5 ) THE other amendment of importance made by the new amending Mysore Act was that, for the definition of "public purpose" which was defined by Section 3 (f), a more comprehensive definition was substituted.

( 6 ) WE should, in pronouncing upon the validity of the submissions made by Mr. Malimath on behalf of the petitioners, keep in mind the amendments made in this way and examine their relevance.

( 7 ) THE first two submissions, namely, that there was no public purpose involved in the acquisition and that there could be no declaration under S. 6 unless the Government was satisfied that the Corporation would make a contribution tot he compensation, rest upon the provisions of s. 6 as it stood before it was amended and which enjoined that a declar