Deprivation of property must be in accordance with law, and proxy acquisition by individuals is prohibited by law.

Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J.

By medium of this writ petition, the petitioner has prayed the following substantive reliefs:

(i) That the respondents may be directed to immediately construct/ repair the road from Bhathmana Bus Stand to Dharvidhar road.

(ii) That the respondents may be directed to take all the necessary steps to make the road usable for at least the small vehicles like Ambulance and utility vehicles.

2. The grievance set out in the petition is that respondents have failed to construct and maintain the road from Bhathmana Bus Stand to Dharvidhar, as a result whereof, the petitioner as well as the other residents of Gram Panchayat are facing great difficulty in approaching the main road “Bhathmana to Shimla”. The demand for construction of link road was raised by the residents, but the government did not take any steps for the construction of the road. Vide resolution dated 8.12.2009, the Gram Panchayat resolved that a grant of Rs.5,00,000/- may be provided for construction of the road. The Gram Panchayat started construction of the road by contributing money as also providing labour and resultantly the road became jeepable in the year 2009 which provides connectivity to about 300 residents of the Gram Panchayat.

3. It is alleged that since the link road was constructed by the residents, it required further leveling by the expert agency of the government and at few places retaining wall and breast walls were also required to be constructed. The residents of the area repeatedly represented to the government and finally the government sanctioned an amount of Rs.3,60,000/- for the construction of the road, but the said amount is not being used for the construction of the road.

4. The official respondents in their reply have raised preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the petition and it is submitted that the villagers had started the construction of Ambulance road out of their personal funds. The respondent No. 2 had sanctioned a sum of Rs.1,00,000/- for the construction of the road on 15.1.2010. The respondent No. 3 further released funds to the Gram Panchayat on 24.11.2010 to construct the said road after completing all codal formalities mandatory for its execution. However, a complaint was received in the office of respondent No.3 Sub Divisional Magistrate, Shimla, where one of the land owners whose land falls adjacent to the public path had requested to stop construction of the road till the construction of the breast wall for protection of his house. Two kilometers of road was constructed by the local residents themselves but then the same was damaged and washed away due to heavy rains in many places. It was further reported that road from RD 0/000 to 0/075 is quite narrow and there were houses towards the hilly side, which required additional funds for their protection.

5. This court vide various interim orders had directed the official respondents to look into the feasibility of construction of the road, pursuant to which various amounts were also sanctioned by the official respondents. However, the State expressed its inability to acquire the private lands including the land belonging to respondent No.3 on account of its policy decision not to acquire any private land for the construction of rural link road as it would lead to multiplicity of litigation in other similarly situated cases throughout the State. Later, when the petitioner offered to bear the entire cost of the acquisition as also the construction, the official respondents were not averse to such proposal as would be clear from the detailed order passed by this court on 18.12.2014, which reads thus:-

“In compliance to the directions passed by this Court on 12.12.2014, Engineer-in-Chief, HPPWD, Shimla is present. On 15.9.2014, this Court passed the following order: “It is represented by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner and the co-villagers are ready to bear the cost of acquisition of the land belongin