New Delhi, October 25
The Supreme Court has stayed the demolition of certain residential properties in Sector 23 Gurugram after the landowners challenged the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s verdict declining their demand for denotification of acquisition of the land in question.
A Bench led by Justice AS Bopanna also decided to examine the landowners’ claim under Section 101A of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (as amended by Haryana Legislative Assembly), which provides for denotification of land acquisition where public purpose has become unviable or non-essential.
Taking note of the fact that the petitioners had the benefit of the interim order before the High Court since May 13, 2022, the Bench, which also included Justice PS Narasimha, on Thursday said, “…neither the structures—if any existing—shall be demolished nor the petitioners shall carry out any improvements or construction in the subject premises.”
The order came on a petition filed by Deepak Aggarwal and others after advocates Govind Goel and ML Sharma submitted on their behalf that the Punjab and Haryana High Court erroneously declined the petitioners’ plea seeking denotification of acquisition of their land.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court had on September 22 turned down the petitioners’ claim for denotification of acquisition of the land in question. The high court held that Section 101A the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, could only be invoked if the public purpose became unviable on account of an act of God or exorbitant financial liability accrued to the Government.
The high court’s judgment became available only on October 13 and the petitioners moved the top court on October 16. In the meantime, the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) demolition men reached the property situated in village Carterpuri, Gurugram and started to demolish parts of the boundary wall of the property that houses around 300 people.
The petitioners’ land was originally proposed to be acquired by the Haryana Government in 1981 for the development of Sectors 21, 22 and 23 of Gurugram. Having constructions on the land, the petitioners moved the high court in 1984 against the acquisition.
After more than three decades, the high court in May 2014 allowed their petition and held that the acquisition has lapsed under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act. However, the high court directed the landowners not to deal with the land in question for a year so that the state government may either re-acquire it or avail of appropriate remedy under the law.
After the expiry of the said one-year period, the land was sold to the petitioners as no action was taken to re-acquire the land by the state government which filed a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court against the HC order after much delay.
Though the state’s SLP was allowed by the top court on February 20, 2018, the Haryana Assembly passed a law in May 2018 that provided for denotification of land if public purpose has become “unviable” or “non-essential”.
Goel contended that the ‘non-essentiality’ or ‘unviability’ was much broader concept and the State itself had denotified under Section 101A on account of existence of residential houses and therefore, the petitioners were entitled to denotification in view of thickly populated property in Sector 23 Gurugram that housed hundreds of people.
Having invoked Section 101A for de-notifying several properties on account of existence of a thick population, the petitioners contended that the State could not single them out as they were entitled to equal treatment and the State authorities could not cherry pick.
