The exercise of emergency powers under the Land Acquisition Act must be based on real urgency and the opinion of the acquiring authority must be reasonably and fairly formed, supported by material or circumstances in the record.

ORDER :- The petition is to quash the proceeding taken by the respondent for compulsory acquisition of one acre and 75 cents out of two acres 86 cents comprised in S. No. 577/1 in Kumarapalayam village Coimbatore Taluk. It appears that the notification under S. 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act was published on 2-5-1962. A declaration under S. 6 was published on 23-5-1962. The acquisition was said to be for the purpose of rehabilitation of slum dwellers in slaughter house area and certain other areas. The main ground on which the validity of the proceedings is questioned is that the respondent arbitrarily invoked the power to dispense with the application of S. 5-A. If this contention is well founded, there is no doubt the land-acquisition proceedings upto the stage of the notification under S. 4(1) should be quashed.

2. This court has repeatedly held that, if the Collector or the Government opined that the matter was urgent, the position cannot be reviewed as in an appeal. But where a party alleges that the emergency powers have been arbitrarily invoked, this court will have to satisfy itself with reference to the materials on record as to whether the contention is well founded. Section 17(2)(b), which is the provision involved in the instant case, states that whenever in the opinion of the Collector it becomes necessary to acquire the immediate possession of any land, application of S. 5-A could be dispensed with. Nowhere in the record of the Collector does it appear how he came to form the opinion that it became necessary to acquire immediate possession of the land. The acquisition would appear to have been started in view of a resolution of the Coimbatore Municipality in October 1960 to acquire lands for the purpose of a scheme to provide rehabilitation of slum dwellers. But the notification under S. 4(1)(a) was only published nearly 18 months later. In his report to the Government dated 28-12-1961, the Collector merely stated :

"As the lands are required urgently for slum clearance purposes, it is proposed to apply urgency clauses under S. 17(2) of the Land Acquisition Act."

On that report the State Government in its order dated 17-04-1962, merely stated :

"The Government accepts the view that the acquisition is an urgent one under S. 17(4) of the Land Acquisition Act, and directs that the provisions of S. 5-A of the Act shall not apply to this case".

Beyond the passages I have extracted the record throws no light whatever on the circumstances constituting the urgency and on the basis of which the Collector and the Government formed their opinion.

3. The use of the emergency powers cannot be lightly resorted to and can be applied only in cases of real urgency, for their application would mean that the person whose land is acquired is deprived of an opportunity to make his representations in respect of the existence of public purpose or the need to acquire a particular land or to suggest an alternative land for acquisition. That is a valuable right for the owner. That right can only be deprived of for proper reasons. That does not mean that in forming the opinion the Collector or the Government are expected to give elaborate reasons. But there must be something on the record to show that the opinion of the Collector or the Government has been reasonably and fairly formed and neither arbitrarily or capriciously. As I said, this court will look to such material so as to satisfy itself as to the proper exercise of the power.

4. In this case, there is no doubt, at any rate so far as the record sent up to this court disclosed, there was no material or circumstance appearing in the record on the basis of which the Collector could have formed the opinion that this was an urgent matter. Even looking at the purpose of acquisition and the surrounding circumstances I am not satisfied that there was any real urgency for acquisition in order to take possession of the land immediately. It follows that the power under Section 17(4) has