Telangana High Court, which quashed the 2006 land acquisition proceedings involving 92.39 acres in Tellapur.

The Telangana High Court has quashed the acquisition proceedings of 92.39 acres of land in Tellapur in 2006 for the formation of a township, holding that the proceedings suffered from serious procedural and substantive illegality.

Justice Vakiti Ramakrishna Reddy allowed a batch of six writ petitions filed by Tellapur ‘G’ Block Plot Owners’ Association and five other private persons challenging the acquisition initiated by the district collector of Medak in 2006 and the subsequent declaration issued in 2007 under the Land Acquisition Act. The court granted liberty to the authorities to initiate fresh acquisition proceedings in accordance with law.

The petitioners were purchasers of plots in Block ‘G’ of a layout developed by the Industrial Employees Co-operative House Building Society. The society had acquired a larger extent of land, obtained layout approval in 1976 and allotted plots to its members through registered sale deeds.

The petitioners contended that Block ‘G’, comprising 594 plots, consisted of patta land and had earlier been excluded from a proposed acquisition following a government decision in 1989. They also pointed out that the layout regularisation process had remained pending, preventing plot owners from obtaining building permissions.

The court found that the notification issued under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act failed to specify the acquisition purpose with the required clarity. It held that the inquiry conducted under Section 5-A, which provides landowners an opportunity to raise objections, had been reduced to an empty formality, as their objections were rejected without adequate reasons or proper application of mind.

The court also observed that the authorities had failed to establish compliance with Section 18 of the Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Development) Act, 1975, which required the government to form an opinion that the land was needed for development.

The court quashed the acquisition notification dated February 22, 2006, and the declaration dated February 3, 2007, insofar as they related to the petitioners’ lands.

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