The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday upheld the acquisition of lands for the formation of Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda layout but imposed conditions on the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) on proceeding with the acquisition of 600 acres of lands, which were under litigation before the court since 2010.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice P.S. Dinesh Kumar and Justice C.M. Poonacha passed the order while setting aside the July 11, 2014, verdict passed by a single judge, who had quashed the entire acquisition on the ground that the final scheme of the layout was approved by the State government much prior to the BDA completing the exercise of hearing the grievances of land losers based on preliminary acquisition notification. Single judge’s order was stayed by a division in August, 2014.
Noticing that the litigations before the court was restricted to only around 600 acres of the total 4,043 acres notified by the layout project, the Bench said that the question of discrimination in denotification of similarly situated lands could be considered by adopting conditions imposed by the court in petitions related to layouts formed earlier by the BDA.
Court’s conditions
The Bench said that all the land owners/petitioners, who are seeking for dropping of their lands from acquisition on the ground that their lands (like nursery lands; situated within green belt; totally built up; that the buildings are constructed by religious/charitable educational institutions; that similar adjoining lands have been either left out from acquisition or denotified) are permitted to make an application to the BDA within three months from Thursday seeking for dropping of their lands from acquisition by producing all materials in support of their applications.
The BDA, the Bench said, should consider such application/s within six months keeping in mind the status of the lands as on the date of the preliminary notification. If the BDA, on consideration of applications, finds that acquisition will have to be proceeded with, then the BDA is at liberty to go ahead as per law, the Bench said.
Revenue site owners
The petitioner-revenue site owners should register themselves for allotment under the BDA (Allotment of Sites) Rules, 1984, within three months from Thursday by paying the registration fee and submitting documents, the Bench said while exempting them from making any initial deposit.
The BDA, the Bench said, should treat applicants as being entitled for priority allotment for a site measuring 30X40 ft in the layout at the prevailing allotment prices subject to the applicants satisfying the dual requirements under the Rules, 1984 that they must be the residents of Bengaluru for 10 years and should not be owning any other residential property in Bengaluru.
In case the applicants do not fulfil the requirements for allotment under the Rules, 1984 then they may be considered for allotment of 20x30 ft sites as per the Bangalore Development Authority (Incentive Scheme for Voluntary Surrender of Land) Rules, 1989, the said.
Sites in private layouts
Insofar as the petitioner-owners of residential sites, which form part of private layouts and who have sought for dropping their sites from acquisition, the Bench said that BDA should consider harmonising these private layouts with its layout plan and allot the same sites that are in their possession particularly those who have already built their houses and living there.
If these sites or houses come in the way of formation of the layout, then owners of sites/houses should be allowed to apply for the priority allotment of alternative sites as in the case of revenue site owners, and the BDA should allot sites within it’s layout, the Bench said.
