Legal victory: MP High Court revokes land acquisition notice

The High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Indore bench, rendered a verdict on 11 March, annulling the notification for the urgent acquisition of land belonging to 35 individuals in Scheme 114. Consequently, their land is now exempt from inclusion in the residential scheme of the Indore Development Authority (IDA). A division bench, comprising Justice SA Dharmadhikari and Justice Pranay Verma, concluded that the invocation of the urgency clause under Section 17(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, was characterised by significant irregularities and illegality. This deprived the appellants of their fundamental right to a fair hearing in the matter. The court announced that the appeals had merit and were, therefore, granted. It declared that the notifications under Sections 4(1) and 6(1) of the Act, 1894, and the subsequent award dated 27.11.1992, concerning the present appellants, were invalidated. The state government, utilising powers under Section 4(1) and 17(1)(4) of the Act, had issued a notification on 6 October 1989, announcing its intention to acquire 84.237 hectares of land in the village of Niranjanpur and Pipliyakumar for developing Scheme No. 114 Part 1 and II. The bench emphasised that the urgency clause could only be invoked in a genuine emergency, which could not tolerate any delay, even for a few days or months. The court noted that after receiving the requisition from IDA for compulsory land acquisition, which itself took three years and ten months, the State Government hastily published the notification under Section 4(1) and Section 17(1)(4), bypassing the appellants' rights. The court criticised the respondents for failing to justify the invocation of the urgency clause in any of the returns submitted, questioning the existence of a genuine emergency warranting such action.?