The court held that the National Highways Authority of India can acquire land for road safety advocacy as it falls within its statutory functions under the National Highways Act.

JUDGMENT :

One R.Thamaraiselvan and V.Ranjith Shankar filed W.P.(MD)Nos.7753 and 12172 of 2018 questioning the notification dated 20.11.2017 issued under Section 3A(1) of National Highways Act, 1956 and the consequential notification dated 01.03.2018 issued under Section 3D(1) of the said Act. The lands belonging to the writ petitioners were included in the said notifications. The acquisition was for forming of “Road Safety Advocacy Project” in the stretch of land from Km 203.00 to 232.00 of NH-7 (Madurai – Kanyakumari Section) in the district of Kanyakumari. The writ petitioners contended that the acquisition was liable to be set aside on the ground of vagueness and for being outside the scope of the relevant statutory provisions. This argument found favour with the learned Single Judge who vide order dated 30.04.2021 quashed the impugned notifications insofar as it related to the acquisition of the lands of the writ petitioners. Challenging the said order, Union of India as well as National Highways Authority of India have filed these intra-court appeals.

2. The learned standing counsel for NHAI reiterated all the contentions set out in the memorandum of grounds of writ appeals and submitted that the impugned notifications are very much within the four corners of the statute and that interference with the same was not warranted. He submitted that since the land owners did not lodge their objections in time, they lost the right to challenge. Further, when once the land stood vested with the Government following the publication and notification under Section 3D(1) of the National Highways Act, 1956 , the right to question the acquisition stood extinguished. He called upon this Court to liberally construe the words occurring in Section 3A(1) of the Act. He took us through the statutory scheme underlying the National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988 and contended that NHAI is obliged to promote road safety since incidents of accidents occurring in highways are alarmingly high. That is why, NHAI conceived of such a project to spread awareness about road safety. According to him, this would certainly be a public purpose. He added that compensation would be paid to the land owners as per Central Act No.30 of 2013. He called upon this Court to sustain the acquisition notifications and set aside the order of the learned Single Judge and dismiss the writ petitions.

3. Per contra, the learned counsel for the writ petitioners submitted that the learned Single Judge had correctly approached the issue. Section 3A of the Act empowers the Central Government to issue acquisition notification only for the purpose of building, maintenance, management or operation of a national highway or part thereof. There is no reference to any other purpose. Road safety awareness cannot fall within the purview of public purpose as set out under Section 3A of National Highways Act, 1956 . There is no provision in the National Highways Authority of India, 1988 to the effect that NHAI can undertake projects for spreading road safety awareness. Thus, the impugned notifications were on the face of it without jurisdiction. He also added that while the notification under Section 3A(1) of the Act spoke only about acquisition for the purpose of forming of “Road Safety Advocacy”, the subsequent notification read that acquisition is for the purpose of forming of “Road Safety Advocacy Project”. Thus, the purpose set out in the two notifications were not identically worded. According to him, the impugned notifications are vitiated by the vice of vagueness. He relied on the decisions reported in (2024) 10 SCC 533 ( Kolkata Municipal Corporation Vs. Bimal Kumar Shah ), (1973) 2 SCC 337 ( Munishi Singh Vs. Union of India ) and (1992) 2 SCC 168 ( Madhya Pradesh Housing Board Vs. Mohd. Shafi ) in support of his contentions. He called upon this Court to sustain the impugned order of the learned Single Judge and dismiss the writ appeals.

4. We carefully considered the rival c