Acquisition proceedings initiated decades ago cannot be challenged based on supposed lapses under current law; vested state land's repurposing is lawful despite original owner's claims.

ORDER :

(PER : HONOURABLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MRS. JUSTICE SUNITA AGARWAL)

1. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the records. The present petition has been filed with the following reliefs:-

8(a) This Hon’ble Court be pleased to admit and allow this petition;

(b) Your Lordships may be pleased to quash and set aside the acquisition proceedings under the Act and award as claimed by the respondent authority being LAQ/10158 dated 11.2.1958 pursuant to the notification u/s.4 and 6 if any of the Act so far as it pertains to the land bearing survey no.1483/ paiki 1 situated at Halvad, Dist. Morbi.

(c) Your Lordships may further be pleased to declare that the acquisition proceeding initiated under the LAND ACQUISITION ACT , 1894 and in respect of the petitioners’ land, shall be deemed to have lapsed in view of the benefits which is granted by the Section 24 (2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013;

(d) Your Lordships may further be pleased to issue a writ of mandamus and/or any other appropriate writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents herein, more particularly respondent State of Gujarat as well as the Collector, Morbi to re-grant the land in name of its erstwhile owners being the petitioner herein;

(e) Pending admission, hearing and/or final disposal of this Special Civil Application, this Hon’ble Court be pleased to restrain the respondents, their servants and agents from dispossessing the petitioner of possession of land and be further be pleased to restrain the respondents, their servants and agents from interfering with the carrying on agricultural operations on the land in question by the petitioner and their family members.

(f) Ex-parte ad-interim relief in terms of para (e) herein above be granted in favour of the petitioner and the same be confirmed after notice to the respondents.

(g) Costs of this petition be provided for to the petitioner.

(h) Such other and further reliefs as this Hon’ble Court may deem just and expedient be granted in favour of the petitioner.

2. A bare perusal of the prayer clause in the writ petition indicates that the challenge made in the writ petition is about the notifications under Sections – 4 and 6 of the LAND ACQUISITION ACT , 1894 published some time in the year 1958. The petitioner herein seems to be the widow of the original owner appearing through her son.

3. Be that as it may, the challenge to the acquisition notifications is based on the provisions contained in Section 24 (2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 [in short ‘The Act, 2013’].

4. The contention of the petitioner in the writ petition is that the land in question was acquired for the purpose of land seeds farm and the mutation entry about the acquisition came to be recorded in the year 1970. Even after mutation entry no.1946 of the year 1970, the petitioner remained in the possession of the land in question. The further contention is that in the year 2000, a decision was taken by the State Government to shut down the Biyaran Vrudhi Kendra, which was set up over the land in question, after the land was acquired in the year 1958. It is further stated that the land in question came to be mutated in the name of State Government, Revenue Department vide Notification dated 15.09.2000 and the order passed by the Collector dated 30.05.2005.

5. The story starts with the application under the right to information filed by the petitioner and the contention in the writ petition is that the land in question was never acquired for Biyaran Vrudhi Kendra and further once the same was transferred in th