Don’t use private land sans acquisition: Allahabad HC cautions state authorities

The Allahabad high court has cautioned the state authorities against using private land without acquiring the same through legal procedure, stating that in case of any default heavy penalty will be imposed on the officers responsible for it.

Allowing a writ petition filed by one Kanyawati of Bareilly district, a division bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Anish Kumar Gupta in a recent order observed, “The state authorities are required to be cautious that they should not utilize the land of the citizens without due authority of law or without following the proper procedure of acquisition, else the authorities, who may be found responsible for such utilization of land without due procedure of law shall be held responsible personally and the court will have to impose heavy penalty for such actions on the part of the authorities, which shall be recovered from their personal account.”

In the present case, the petitioner purchased a piece of land in Bareilly district. At the time of purchase, the revenue record reflected the ‘chak’ (public) road which was to the south of the petitioner’s plot. Subsequently, the road was widened and a portion of petitioner’s land was taken for the same without awarding her any compensation.

When the petitioner filed an RTI application, she was informed that there was no record for any acquisition proceedings for her land. Despite repeated representations to the authority for compensation, the petitioner received no response.

Thereafter, she approached the high court wherein her writ petition was disposed of with a direction to “the district magistrate- Bareilly to refer the matter to the district level committee in terms of the government order (GO) dated May 12, 2016 for determination of entitlement of compensation of the petitioner herein.”

The district level committee rejected the petitioner’s claim stating that initially the ‘chak’ road was 3-metre wide and extra 2.5-metre was available on both sides. Therefore, by widening the road 1.25- metre, no individual right of the tenure holder had been infringed. Hence, the petitioner filed the present writ petition.

The court observed that initial ‘chak’ road was developed by the sugar industry and cane development department around 20 years back without any acquisition and it was subsequently widened by the PWD by taking away certain portion of petitioner’s land without proper acquisition process.

After examining the tehsildar’s report, the court held that the Constitution of India granted a right to property under Article 300A and prohibited deprivation of property without following due procedure of law.

“The land of a person cannot be acquired without payment of due compensation in accordance with law. There is no concept of implied consent for utilizing the land of a citizen without following the due procedure and without payment of compensation. The property of a citizen can be acquired for public purpose on payment of reasonable compensation in accordance with law,” the court added.

The court held that right to property being a Constitutional right instead of a fundamental one was at par with human rights and a person could not be deprived of the right over their property without following due procedure in law. It held that any person whose land is being utilised without sanction of law is entitled to compensation.