State govt is guardian of public and its interest, says Apex court
New Delhi: The state government is “guardian” of the public and its interest, the Supreme Court said on Friday while deprecating the manner in which the state of Haryana dealt with acquisition proceedings, either releasing the land or permitting the acquisition to be quashed in a “most arbitrary manner.”
The apex court was dealing with the pleas arising out of the April 2021 judgement of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on a batch of petitions concerning acquisition of land for residential and commercial purposes in Kurukshetra.
A bench of Justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar said the state shall take care in future and must use the land acquired for the purpose for which it has been acquired, otherwise the object and purpose of acquisition will be frustrated.
“The state government is guardian of the public interest and the public and the public interest was required to be considered the paramount interest rather than releasing
the lands at initial stage in favour of the influential persons,” the bench said in its 22-page verdict.
The apex court noted that Haryana had issued a notification on April 21, 1987 under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 intending to acquire 35.76 acres of land for development and utilisation at sector 11, Kurukshetra.
It noted the award was pronounced by the land acquisition collector on April 12, 1990 for land measuring 34.61 acres only and thereafter, another notification was issued by the state in February 2002 for acquiring land measuring 126.30 acres for residential, commercial and institutional purposes in sector 6 and 11.
The bench observed it appeared that even before the issuance of notification under section 6 of the Act, land measuring 81.91 acres belonging to 43 land holders came to be released.
It noted that except for the original writ petitioners in one of the pleas before the high court, the rest of the land parcels acquired totalling 40.80 acres belonging to different landholders came to be released from acquisition either by the state or pursuant to orders passed by the high court in various writ petitions.
