Judicial review mandates prior notice before enforcement action under land conservancy regulations.

JUDGMENT

Petitioner has approached this Court challenging Ext.P4 notice whereby proceedings under the Land Conservancy Rules, 1958 was initiated invoking urgency clause.

2. Petitionersubmits that he was issued with a building permit for construction of a commercial building and while the construction of the building was going on, the panchayat issued Ext.P2 stop memo stating that the construction is encroaching PWD road and they are awaiting report of the 4^th respondent. Thereupon petitioner approached this Court by filing W.P.(C) No.14438 of 2016, which was disposed of by Ext.P3 judgment with a direction to respondents 3 to 6 therein to take expeditious steps to survey the boundary of the PWD road immediately and thereafter take a decision in the matter. The specific grievance raised by the petitioner is that without even complying with the direction in Ext.P3, now Ext.P4 notice has been issued as per the Land Conservancy Rules, 1958 directing the petitioner to evict the encroachment. The respondent panchayat has filed a counter affidavit stating that necessary survey has been conducted, but the specific case of the petitioner is that he has not issued any notice regarding the survey.

3. Taking note of the contention of the petitioner that the survey was without issuing notice to him, the learned Government Pleader was directed to file a statement. Now, the learned Government Pleader submits that instructions have been received to the effect that a survey was conducted, but there is no instruction as to whether the same was conducted with notice to the petitioner.

Taking into consideration the above facts and circumstances, I am of the view that the matter requires reconsideration, after conducting a proper survey with notice to the petitioner. Accordingly, Ext.P4 notice is set aside with a consequential direction to the respondents to conduct a survey with notice to the petitioner and take further action according to the outcome of the survey, without any delay.

Writ petition is disposed of as above.

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