The Bombay High Court dismissed a writ petition which wad filed by the owners of the lands which have been acquired for the purpose of building the ChhatrapatiShivajiMaharaj International Airport and it further imposed a cost of Rs. 10,000 for challenging the said acquisition of untenable grounds. The acquisition took place under the Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1952 in 1953 while it was challenged in the year 2015 by the owners of the land.
It was submitted by the petitioner that,
- The airport was being operated under the Airport Authority of India (AAI) till 2006, but after this, an agreement termed as OMDA (Operation, Management and Development Agreement) was entered into between the AAI and Mumbai International Airport Pvt. Ltd., according to which the functions such as operation, maintenance, etc. of the airport were taken over by the Mumbai International Airport.
- The development of airport as per the OMDA is complete and large part of acquired land is unutilized
- The parties have been further invited to submit applications for participation in bidding process for five land parcels which form the part of the land of airport for commercial exploitation. Thus, it was argued that the lands which have been acquired for the public purpose of airport are being used for private purposes, resulting into an act of fraud and therefore, the lands must be reverted to the original owners.
After hearing all the contentions, reference was made by the Supreme Court to the case laws, Northern Indian Glass Industries vs. Jaswant Singh and Gulam Mustafa vs. State of Maharashtra. The Supreme Court in Gulam’s case explained the Land Acquisition Act and observed that there is no provision in the Act, which empowers the owner to reclaim the land if the same has been acquired by the State and is not used for the acquired purposes. Therefore, the State cannot be divested of the title just because of the reason that the land has been used for the purposes for which it is not acquired. It was further noted by the Bench that if the acquired land is fraudulently diverted for a private purpose, then an individual can approach the High Court in its writ jurisdiction by filing a Public Interest Litigation. But this was not in the present case, and therefore the court dismissed the petition.
Courtesy/By: Kritika Mehandiratta
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17 Sep 2018
