COMMON ORDER

The acquisition of lands for the purpose of four laning/widening the Pondicherry-Tindivanam Section of NH-66, which has resultantly ended in the passing of award and receipt of compensation by the concerned petitioners, is put in issue before this Court, in the present batch of writ petitions, questioning the said acquisition on the ground that the said acquisition is not only covered by the Gazette Notification, but also acquired with mala fide intent and, therefore, the acquisition is bad in law and deserves interference by directing the respondents to return the land and receive back the compensation paid to the petitioners pursuant to the passing of the award.

2. Initially the writ petitions were filed questioning the validity of the acquisition and, thereafter, miscellaneous petitions were filed in W.P. Nos.15155 to 15163 and 18917/2010 for amending the prayer which questioned the validity of Sections 3-A, C-3, C-D, 3-F and 3-J of the National Highways Act, which, on amendment, were placed before the Division Bench of this Court, since the validity of provisions of a statute were put in issue and before the Division, Bench, the petitioners in the said petitions sought permission to withdraw the portion of the prayer in which the constitutional validity of the provisions were challenged, which plea was accepted and resultantly, the original prayer was permitted to be canvassed and, therefore, the present petitions have been listed before this Court.

3. The short facts of the case leading to the filing of the present petitions are that notification u/s 3-A (1) and 3-D (1) and (2) of the National Highways Act (for short ‘the Act’) on 16.01.2009 and 27.07.2009 respectively for acquisition of land for widening/four laning of the National Highways was issued by calling for objections and the objections were considered u/s 3-C of the Act and the objections were rejected on 19.5.2009 and after following the procedures contemplated under the Act with regard to acquisition, award was passed on 31.03.2010 and upon payment of compensation amount in full, notice u/s 3-E (1) dated 18.5.2010 was issued seeking possession of the lands from the land owners. It is the case of the petitioners that compensation amount was also received by the petitioners under the bona fide belief that their lands fall within the proposed area of acquisition as notified by the 2nd respondent.

4. It is the averment of the petitioner that chainages were marked on the road by the 3rd respondent on NH-66 and the chainage marked on the Pondicherry arch is KM 3/520 and only then for the first time, the petitioners noticed that the properties under acquisition are coming within the stretch of lands that fall within Km 3/500 to 3/600 and do not fall within the stretch of Km 3/600 to 37/920. It is the averment of the petitioners that the said stretch do not come within the scope of acquisition whereupon the petitioners came to know that the petitioners lands have been included in the land acquisition notification without jurisdiction. After collecting all the necessary particulars with regard to the erroneous acquisition of lands the petitioners sent detailed representation to the respondents to withdraw the land acquisition and get back the award amount from the petitioners, which was rejected by the respondent against which the present petitions have been filed.

5. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners submitted that once the Court has admitted the petitions and called for the original records, it is the duty of the respondents to place before the court the original records, as the original records alone would prove the falsity of the respondents claim with regard to acquisition. It is the submission of the learned counsel that the original file alone will reveal the approval granted by the 1st respondent and the nature of works that come within the approval granted by the 1st respondent and also the requirement of lands of the petitioners lying i