The court affirmed that acquisition proceedings lapsed under Section 11A of the Land Acquisition Act, and violation of the principle of Audi Alteram Partem rendered the BL & LRO's order void.

Judgment :

Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.

1. The present appeal arises out of the dismissal of a writ petition filed by the appellants challenging the treatment of the subject-land as an acquired land by the State and for consequential reliefs.

2. The brief facts of the case are that the appellants purchased the subject-plot by several deeds between the years 2019 and 2023. The concerned plots of land have all along been recorded in the Records of Rights in the name of the vendor/predecessor-in-interest of the appellants, who is respondent no. 10 in the present appeal. The appellants allege that an office was set up unlawfully by the PWD at a corner of the said plot, apparently during construction of an adjacent road, and a hotel has also been constructed illegally in a portion of the subject-plot under a Government project.

3. Upon purchase, the appellants approached the concerned Block Land and Land Development Officer (BL & LRO), Shantipur, Nadia, as well as the SDL & LRO for deletion of the recording of “PWD Road” from the 'Remark's column of the Records of Rights. However, when the appellant no.1 approached the office of the concerned BL & LRO on February 11, 2025, the said appellant was informed that a suo motu proceeding had been initiated by the BL & LRO at the instance of the PWD bearing Miscellaneous Case No.02 of 2025/STB and by an order dated January 20, 2025, a direction was issued for deleting the names of the original owner from the Records of Rights as raiyats and, instead, to record the name of the PWD as raiyat. The appellants, upon obtaining a copy of the order of correction of the Records of Rights, found out that the apparent basis of the same was the publication of two Notifications, respectively under Sections 4 and 6 of the LAND ACQUISITION ACT (for short, “the LA Act”), in the years 1946 and 1949.

4. The learned Single Judge, proceeding on the premise that an appeal had already been preferred by the appellants under Section 51A (5) of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955 (hereinafter referred to as “the 1955 Act”), dismissed the writ petition by observing that the appellants would not be prevented from approaching the appropriate forum for ventilating their grievance with the self-same reliefs.

5. Learned senior counsel appearing for the appellants contends that the learned Single Judge proceeded on the fundamental misconception that an appeal had been preferred under Section 51A (5) of the 1955 Act, since no such appeal had at all been preferred at any point of time.

6. Secondly, it is argued that the reliefs sought in the writ petition attempt to hit at the very premise of the order of the BL & LRO, that is, the land had been acquired by the State. The factum of publication of the two Notifications under Sections 4 and 6 of the LA Act was disclosed for the first time before the BL & LRO, on the basis of which such direction was passed by the latter. However, it is argued that even if such Notifications were issued, the entire acquisition proceeding would have lapsed by operation of Section 11A of the LA Act.

7. Learned senior counsel further argues that no notice of the suo motu proceeding before the BL & LRO was ever served on the appellants or their vendor and, as such, the order of the BL & LRO is vitiated due to violation of the principle of Audi Alteram Partem. By placing reliance on Whirlpool Corporation v. Registrar of Trademarks, Mumbai and others , reported at (1998) 8 SCC 1 , it is contended that the power to issue prerogative writs under Article 226 of the Const