O R D E R

1. The Greater Cochin Development Authority (hereinafter referred to as ‘GCDA’ for brevity) is in appeal against the order dated 23.05.2011 passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala in Writ Appeal No. 297 of 2011. The Division Bench of the High Court modified the order passed by the Single Judge dismissing the writ petition and directed the appellant to formulate a scheme for giving access to the road by collecting some amount as consideration.

2. The short facts necessary for consideration of this appeal are that the appellant constructed an international stadium over an area of 32 acres of land, for which, 23.6 acres was given by the state government and the rest was procured by the appellant by mutual exchange of land through negotiation and also through the land acquisition procedure by grant of compensation. A few land owners who gave up their land which had access to motorable road, were given access to the ring road constructed in the vicinity of the stadium. The respondent surrendered 18 cents of land in lieu of a like area of land of equal value owned by appellant in another area.

3. The respondent was not one of those to whom access to road was granted. He filed Writ Petition No. 905 of 2011 before the High Court in 2011 followed by certain earlier representations seeking direction for access to the road. The Single Judge by his order dated 25.01.2011 dismissed the writ petition. In the Writ Appeal, filed by respondent, the Division Bench passed the following order:

“5. After hearing both sides, we do not find that the appellant has established any right to get road access to the GCDA road under any agreement or undertaking given by the GCDA. All the land owners except the one referred to above were compensated for the land acquired and therefore nobody has a right to claim access to the road constructed by the GCDA around the stadium as part of consideration for acquisition. The person, who surrendered land free of cost specifically requested for road access and the same was rightly granted by the GCDA. Others, who have collected compensation under the land acquisition act are not entitled to access to GCDA road as a matter of right. However, what we feel is that since the road has become a public road, it would be wise on the part of the GCDA to give access to neighbouring land owners by collecting consideration for the facility provided. When road access is given to neighbouring land owners, the value of such land goes up substantially high, and the GCDA can for providing road access collect consideration keeping in mind the massive expenditure incurred by them for land acquisition and road construction. This is one way for recouping part of the massive expenditure of over Rs.100 crores spent and massive interest burden suffered by the GCDA for construction of the stadium, which has not yielded any substantial return to the GCDA. It is a notorious fact that the financial commitment for the construction of the stadium virtually depleted the funds of the GCDA, which has virtually put an end to all development projects which the GCDA ought to have otherwise undertaken and completed.”

4. It is evident from the above that the High Court has, in fact, noted that all the land owners who have taken alternative land or compensation have no right to claim access to the road constructed by the GCDA. This finding is followed by a further observation that the persons who had surrendered the land free of cost specifically with request for access to the road were given such a facility. Admittedly, the land surrendered by the respondent did not have access to a motorable road and the respondent also did not make a demand to have access to such road.

5. In view of the clear finding that there was no right vested in the respondent to seek access to the road, the matter should have ended there.

6. The High Court, however, proceeded to formulate a revenue- earning model for the appellant. The High Court felt that