S.V. Gangapurwala, J.

1. The petitioner vide the present writ petition assails the notification issued U/Sec. 4 and the declaration U/Sec. 6 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 (hereinafter referred as to the "Act of 1894" for the sake of brevity) in respect of the property bearing Sy. No. 148/1 admeasuring 4H 59R.50 square meter situated at Shirdi, Tq. Rahata, Dist. Ahmednagar.

2. The land of the petitioner admeasuring 4H 59R . 50 square meter in land Sy. No. 148/1 is sought to be acquired for Shirdi Sansthan for construction of the Dharmashala. The notification U/Sec. 4 of the Act of 1894 is published in the news paper on 27.09.2000. The petitioner raised her objection to the said acquisition U/Sec. 5A of the Act of 1894. The said objection is rejected. Thereafter, declaration U/Sec. 6 of the Act of 1894 is published on 21.09.2001. This Court vide order dated 29.04.2002 admitted the petition and directed the parties to maintain status quo until further orders.

3. Mr. S. D. Kulkarni, the learned counsel for the petitioner with all humility at his command put forth the following propositions:

(a) The acquisition of the land for Shirdi Saibaba Sansthan which is a public trust by the Government under the provisions of the Act of 1894 cannot be termed as "public purpose" within the meaning of Sec. 3(f) of the Act of 1894. The acquisition of the land for the purpose of construction of Dharmashala, parking, kitchen hall, etc. of the public trust i. e. respondent No. 4 cannot be said to be a public purpose.

(b) The acquisition of land is not bonafide. The same is politically motivated. The acquisition is malafide one. To buttress the said submission the learned counsel relies on following instances.

(i) The respondent No. 4 Sansthan has various lands admeasuring 230 acres. It can use the said lands for construction of Dharmashala. Recently the Sansthan has purchased 150 acres of land from Maharashtra State Farming Corporation. The Sansthan has about 40 lands either agricultural or non agricultural in Shirdi town, hence there is no requirement of any other land.

(ii) Some of the lands which were reserved for respondent No. 4/Sansthan have been deleted from reservation.

(iii) In the past two acres of the land has been given by the petitioner for bus stand without any compensation. Three acres of land has been given to the Sai Hall without any compensation. Twenty acres of land having 500 rooms is taken from the possession of petitioner's father for nominal consideration by the Sansthan. Even 13 H 19R land excluding disputed land is taken from the petitioner for various other purposes, such as hospital, Dharmashala, bus stand, police station, society office, B.S.N.L., vegetable market. During the pendency of present proceedings two more lands from the same Sy. No. 148/1 are acquired i. e. 27R for ring road and 3 R land for Shirdi Nandurki road. The repeated acquisitions of the land from the same person when there are other properties available would show colourable exercise of powers and malafides.

(iv) In 2013 said Sansthan has constructed 1056 rooms, in 1993-1994 constructed 500 rooms, in 2001-2002 constructed 200 rooms and 192 halls in 2013 and hence there is no requirement for the purpose of Dharmashala. There are more than 323 hotels and lodging boardings in Shirdi.

(v) More than 47,000 acres of Maharashtra State Farming Corporation's Land is available for different public purposes and nearby lands of Shirdi are reserved for public purposes. The said lands can be utilized for the purpose of Sansthan.

(c) The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (hereinafter referred as to "Act of 2013" for the sake of brevity) has come into operation from 01.01.2014. Referring to Sec. 114 of Act of 2013, the learned counsel states that, there is no saving clause in the said Act. There is only provision of repeal. The proceedings under the old Act of 1894 are not sav