In a jolt to the Navi Mumbai International Airport, the Bombay High Court has struck down the land acquisition process for the project citing non-compliance with mandatory legal provisions and procedural irregularities by CIDCO and the Maharashtra government.

The Bombay High Court passed its judgement on March 4. The court observed that landowners had a right to be heard and that procedural mandates were not followed in the 2017 acquisition of several plots of agricultural land in Vahal village, Panvel.

The court’s judgment came on a group of petitions filed by farmers from Navi Mumbai. The farmers had challenged the 2013 notification for acquiring agricultural land in Vahal village in Panvel for the project.

Farmers had filed petitions before the HC to challenge a May 2015 notification and the 2017 acquisition of their lands. The farmers had challenged the acquisition as being vitiated and erroneous. The farmers averred that the government agencies ahd dispensed with a mandatory enquiry process under the Land Acquisition Act with no real urgency cited.

A bench comprising Justices MS Sonak and Jitendra Jain observed that the acquisition process initiated by CIDCO and the Maharashtra government was flawed due to the absence of a valid notification. The government agencies had invoked urgency provisions under Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

As per section 17 of the Act, the Collector has the power to take possession of land in urgent situations and this can be done even before an award is made.

The failure to conduct a mandatory inquiry under Section 5A rendered the acquisition illegal, the judgement said. Section 5A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, allows any person with an interest in land notified for acquisition under Section 5 for a public purpose to raise objections against the acquisition within 30 days of the notification. 

This essentially provides a right to be heard before the land is compulsorily acquired by the government and it is a crucial safeguard for landowners against arbitrary land acquisition.

The declaration by government agencies had erroneously referred to an urgency notification that never existed, according to AV Anturkar, the advocate representing the farmers. "This was not at all a case of any real urgency that could not brook a delay of even a few weeks or months," he argued even as he pointed out that despite repeated opportunities, the government failed to produce any such notification.

Appearing for the state government, AI Patel, the additional government pleader, argued that the court must go ahead with the premise that a notification existed and that the project served a public purpose. He urged the court to mould relief rather than nullify the acquisition.

Disagreeing with the additional government pleader, the bench said, "It is one thing to say that the state and its instrumentality want to execute a project of public importance without loss of time. It is altogether different to say that in the execution of such a project, private individuals should be deprived of their property without even being heard." 

The bench emphasised that procedural safeguards could not be bypassed while observing that "this was not a case of any real urgency".