The court recognized governmental discretion to designate public works sites, affirming that prior judicial approvals preclude relitigation on the same issues, underscoring constructive res judicata principles.

ORDER :

1. Since the issue involved in all these writ petitions as well as the writ appeal and contempt petition is one and the same, all these cases were heard together and are disposed by this common order.

2. The factual matrix which revolves in all these cases can be divided into two parts. Part-I starts from the year 2006 and ends with the dismissal of batch of writ petitions by a Division Bench of this Court, by order, dated 28.04.2014 in W.P.(MD).No.1881 of 2013 etc., batch. Part-II starts thereafter and ends at filing of all these cases.

3. The necessary facts in Part-I which are the very basic facts are first traversed hereunder in nutshell :

3.1. That the Karur Municipality, which has subsequently been developed as a Municipal Corporation, was, during the early 2000, a busy developing Municipal Town in the State of Tamil Nadu. It is one of the industrial town of various activities mainly on the manufacture and export of garments. It has a central bus stand which has been established long years ago. Since the parking facility of the said central bus stand of karur town was having the capacity of only 50 odd buses, there had been a consistent demand from all walks of life to expand the bus stand or to construct a new bus stand. In this context though some steps had been taken by the municipality to develop the bus stand, that had not yielded any desired result. Therefore the Karur Municipality had decided to explore the possibility of construction of an integrated new bus stand to cater the needs of all walks of life who comes to and go from the karur town.

3.2. In this regard, the District Collector of Karur had sent a proposal, dated 28.01.2006 that, lands available in three places namely Sanappiratti village, Attur village and Thoranakalpatti village were examined and a total extent of 8.10 acres of land at Thoranakalpatti village in Thanthoni-III Grade municipality offered by the villagers free of cost for the construction of the bus stand would be suitable.

3.3. The said recommendation of the District Collector was rejected by the Karur Municipality Council by Resolution No.32, dated 31.01.2006. Therefore at the instance of the Government, the Municipal Commissioner of Karur had been in searching of a suitable alternative place. Therefore he had sent a communication to the Project Director of the National Highways Authority of India on 27.01.2009 with a request to send the road map for the National Highways, that was coming up in Trichy - Coimbatore bye pass road passing through the Thanthoni revenue village as well as the Thoranakalpatti revenue village.

3.4. In the meantime, the Councillors of the Municipality had brought two independent private resolutions to be adopted by the Municipal Council Meeting held on 29.01.2009. According to which, the ward councillor one by name R.Prabhu brought a resolution regarding the location for the proposed bus stand to an extent of 17 acres of land situated at Sukkaliyoor village which is a Government poramboke land. The other proposal was brought in by one N.Maniraj, the Councillor, according to him, the location of the bus stand can be fixed in a land belonging to the temple called Sri Bala Thandayuthapani Temple in Thanimalai, Attur village.

3.5. The Municipal Council in its meeting dated 29.01.2009 has accepted the resolution brought in by R.Prabhu by rejecting the resolution brought in by N.Maniraj.

3.6. Therefore as per the resolution passed by the Municipal Council the land at Sukkaliyoor village comes under Thoranakalpatti revenue village was accepted by the Municipal Council initially.

3.7. Thereafter the RDO, Karur addressed the District Collector reco