Compliance with procedural safeguards in land acquisition is essential to protect property rights, but public interest may justify proceeding despite lapses.

JUDGMENT :

A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar, J.

1. The petitioners in W.P(C).No.18680 of 2021 are the appellants before us, aggrieved by the judgment dated 06.01.2025 of a learned Single Judge dismissing the writ petition. The brief facts necessary for a disposal of this writ appeal are as follows:

The appellants herein had approached the writ court aggrieved by the land acquisition proceedings that had been initiated under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 [hereinafter referred to as ‘the 2013 Act’] by which lands belonging to them stood compulsorily acquired by the State for the purposes of constructing a Railway Overbridge and its approach roads at Kuruppanthara in Kottayam District. The challenge to the acquisition proceedings were premised primarily on the contention that the procedural safeguards that were put in place in the 2013 Act were honoured more in breach by the authorities who were entrusted to discharge their statutory functions with due diligence. In particular it was pointed out that while under Section 8 of the 2013 Act, the appropriate Government [in this case 'the District Collector'] had to take a decision as to whether there was a legitimate and bona fide public purpose for which the acquisition was proposed, and the decision had to be taken after looking into the report of the expert group constituted under Section 7 of the 2013 Act, no such decision was taken by the District Collector. It was contended therefore that the notification issued under Section 11 of the 2013 Act had to be seen as invalid. It was the further case of the appellants that the authorities under Sections 4 and 7 of the 2013 Act had not addressed the question as to whether any public purpose was served through the proposed acquisition more so when there was an existing railway overbridge that was constructed in the year 2017 within a distance of 250 metres of the proposed site, and yet another newly constructed Railway Overbridge within one kilometre from the proposed site.

2. The learned Single Judge, who considered the matter, referred to the counter affidavits filed on behalf of the respondents to find that there had been sufficient compliance with the substantive and procedural provisions of the 2013 Act and hence there was no necessity to interfere with the acquisition proceedings that were now in an advanced stage where awards had been passed determining the compensation payable to the affected persons. The learned Judge also took note of the fact that while there were many persons who were affected by the acquisition proceedings, only two persons had chosen to challenge the same, and therefore the overriding public interest lay in allowing the acquisition proceedings to go ahead.

3. Before us, it is the submission of the learned Senior Counsel Sri. Suresh Kumar P.K., assisted by Adv.Sri.K.P.Sudheer that the learned Single Judge failed to take note of the importance of the particular procedural provisions under the 2013 Act, that were not there under the earlier enactment, and were inserted therein to ensure a first-level protection to citizens against an arbitrary deprivation of their property rights. In particular, he points to the fact that there was no decision taken by the District Collector in terms of Section 8 of the 2013 Act, as indeed he could not have, since the material he was to rely upon for taking an informed decision was the report of the expert group under Section 7 which itself had not considered relevant facts while submitting its report. He refers to the re