JUDGMENT 1. Writ appeal by persons who claim to be owners of land in Survey/Block Nos.141 and 145 measuring an extent of 1 acre 18 guntas and 1 acre 30 guntas respectively of Amargol Village in Hubli Taluk of Dharwad District. 2. Appellants are aggrieved that a challenge mounted by them to the scheme for development of land by the 2nd respondent, Hubli-Dharwad Urban Development Authority and acquisition of their lands for implementation of such plan as not legal has been rejected by a learned Single Judge of this Court by dismissing their writ petition. 3. In the writ petition it had contended that the authority has acted in a partisan manner in not acquiring the entire extent proposed under the Scheme, but has periodically given up chunks of land proposed for acquisition under the scheme; that, though the appellants would very much like to get a like treatment, they failed and such other grounds to seek relief in the writ petition which did not prove to be of any success to them for the reason that the learned Single Judge who examined their case in Writ Petition No. 10584/2007 dismissed the petition as per the order dated 3.7.2008 being of the view that the challenge is at a very belated stage; that the authority has gone ahead with the acquisition proceedings under the scheme; that other members of the family had approached this Court by filing writ petitions for the very purpose and after their failure, the petitioners-persent appellants have come up with a repeat petition; that it is also without any bona fides and therefore, to be dismissed. 4. 4. Undaunted by their failure, appellants have come up in this appeal and though an appeal of this nature seldom receives much attention and very rarely meets with any degree of success, as more and more facts and developments were made known to the Court during the course of the hearing in the last 3 to 4 occasions, we have realized that this is a classic case of gross abuse of drastic power of the State to acquire land for public purpose under compulsion and to compound the same, a scheme which had been proposed by respondent No.2 – Development Authority has suffered several mutilations, surgeries and remains in a truncated form, casting doubts on the efficacy of implementation of the scheme and as to whether, it really can serve any public good at the cost of considerable private misery. 5. We have also noticed that the State government in the initial stages and later the authority itself, have acted in an unreasonable, whimsical, arbitrary manner systematically excluding chunks of land from the scope of the scheme and the scope of acquisition, notwithstanding the learned counsel appearing for the authority claiming that the scheme is at a concluding stage and the authority wants to distribute sites from out of the acquired area to thousands of eager aspiring applicants. 6. The Hubli-Dharwad Urban Development Authority, it appears, had proposed a scheme to develop what is known as Amaragol Village Scheme, a village located in between Hubli-Dharwad cities, which is evidenced by a notification dated 14.11.2000 published by the authority under Section 17(1) of the Karnataka Urban Development Act, 1987 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’). The scheme proposed was covering an extent of 88 acres 6 guntas. 7. The authority, on receiving representations in respect of this publication, was of the view that an extent of 9 acres 35 guntas of land should be excluded from the scope of the scheme and therefore, after excluding this extent of land, forwarded a proposal to the State Government for approval of the scheme in respect of the remaining extent of 79 acres 32 guntas of land, as envisaged under Section 18 of the Act. Section 18 of the Act reads as under: 18. Section 18 of the Act reads as under: 18. Sanction of scheme:- (1) After publication of the scheme and service of notices as provided in Section 17 and after consideration of representations, if any, received in respect thereof, the authority shall submit the scheme, making such modification, therein as it may think fit to the Government for sanction, furnishing- (a) a description with full particulars of the scheme including the reasons for any modification inserted therein; (b) complete plans and estimates of the cost of executing the scheme; (c) any representation received under sub-section (2) of section 17; (d) a schedule showing the rateable value as entered in the municipal assessment book on the date of the publication of a notification relating to the land under section 17 or the land specified in the statement under clause (c) ; and (e) such other particulars, if any, as may be prescribed. (2) Where any development scheme provides for the construction of houses, the authority shall also submit to the Government plans and estimates for the construction of the houses. (3) After considering the proposal submitted to it the Government may, by order, give sanction to the scheme. 8. Now, it was the turn of the State Government to act for deletion. State Government, purporting to exercise its power under Sub-section (3) of Section 18, instead of approving or disapproving the scheme as submitted by the authority by itself deleted considerable extent of land measuring 22 acres 25 guntas from the ambit of the proposed scheme and approved the scheme only in the respect of 57 acres 7 guntas, forgetting that the scheme was that of the Development Authority and not of the Government. 9. This development took place as per the proceedings of the State Government date 25.06.2003 in Government Order No. NAE 60/BEMAPRA 2002, Bangalore, copy produced as Annexure-G to the writ petition and also as Annexure-R.1 to the affidavit of Sri Ravindra, Commissioner of Hubli-Dharwad Urban Development Authority, placed before this Court on this day and sworn to on 30.6.2009. 10. A scheme as originally proposed covering an extent of 88 acres 6 guntas, by the time it got the nod of the Government, had got reduced to an area, covering an extent of 57 acres 7 guntas and this happened in the year 2003. 11. 10. A scheme as originally proposed covering an extent of 88 acres 6 guntas, by the time it got the nod of the Government, had got reduced to an area, covering an extent of 57 acres 7 guntas and this happened in the year 2003. 11. Thereafter, it was the turn of the Development Authority to get active to delete further extent from the scope of the scheme, acting at the behest of persons who evinced interest in the lands proposed for acquisition under the scheme. This is obvious from the proceeding of the authority dated 29.8.2003. copy produced as Annexure-R.2 to the affidavit dated 30.06.2009 under which, the authority, in its meeting of the even date, decided to exclude a further extent of 3 acres 20 guntas for the reason that some unauthorized structures had cropped up in that area. 12. This was followed by two more resolutions passed on 29.10.2003, which were also for further deletion and as per the resolution dated 29.10.2003, copy at Annexure – R3 to the affidavit and another resolution of the same date, copy at Annexure - R4, a further extent o f16 guntas in Block No. 138 and 5 acres 29 guntas in Block No.178 was excluded from the purview of the scheme. 13. State Government either being ignorant of the resolutions of the authorities resulting in excluding further chunks of the land from the Developmental Scheme as per the resolutions Annexures – R.2, R.3 and R.4 or ignoring the resolutions, nevertheless went ahead and issued a declaration under Section 19(1) of the Act in respect of the very 57 acres 7 guntas of land for which, it had approved sanction in favour of the authority. 14. Then followed corrective action by the State Government to issue notifications either under Sectio 19(7) of the Act or under Section 48 of the Land Acquisition Act for giving effect to the resolutions of the authority and purporting to exclude the very extent of land from the scheme in terms of the notifications dated 10.11.2004 for 16 guntas of land in Block No.138 and dated 24.12.2004 in respect of 5 acres 29 guntas in Block/Survey No.178 and the notification dated 11.8.2005 covering an extent of 3 acres 20 guntas in survey/ Block No. 154. 15. 15. As a result, the extent of land in respect of which the scheme could be implemented got reduced to 47 acres 22 guntas. 16. The story of deletions did not stop at this. There were several writ petitions questioning the acquitsition proceedings and though, all of them were dismissed, the authority, purporting to give effect to certain observations made by this Court while disposing of Writ Petition No. 15405/2005/c/w Writ petition No. 34217/2004 as per the order 8.3.2007, embarked upon deletion of a further extent of 2 acres form survey No.161/3 and a development of this nature has taken place in terms of the notification of the State Government in No. NAE. 65 BEMAPRA 2008 dated 22.6.2009, copy of which is placed before the Court by Sri Vinod Prasad, learned counsel for the appellants along with a memo, which indicates that an extent of 2 acres has been given up from the purview of acquisition by the Government in exercise of its powers under Section 19 (1) of the Act read with Section 48 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984. 17. It is this development which virtually startled us to have a second look into the manner in which the power of eminent domain has been exercised by the authority and the State Government, for acquiring private land under compulsion in the name of developmental activity and in the name of public purpose. 18. We are quite conscious of the scope of examination in writ jurisdiction when a challenge is made to the power of acquisition of private lands/properties in terms of his legal position as of now and that dismissal of such writ petitions is the rule and interference is an exception. We are not in any doubt that the State Government can exercise its pares of the eminent domain and can acquire private lands compulsorily on payment of proper compensation for a public purpose and in accordance with the statutory provisions. There can be no two opinions that public interest always outweighs private/individual interest, but even the State Government and the authority, an instrumentality of the state, are all bound by the provisions of the Constitution and the laws and any power that is to be exercised has to be exercised in a fair, proper, law conforming, and constitutional conforming manner and without bias, without any prejudice or without being motivated by favoritism. 19. 19. As of now, a scheme initially formulated by the Development Authority for developing an extent of 88 acres 6 guntas of land, has now got reduced to a scheme which can be operated only to an extent of 45 acres 22 guntas, i.e., almost 50% of the original extent of land has gone out of the scheme. It is this development which has made us to look into the manner in which the authorities acting in the name of putting into operation a developmental scheme and for public purpose, have been exercising power in an erratic manner. The developments as noticed above and a further insight into the manner in which these developments took place and about which, we became aware of, as the resolutions and the Government order leading to such deletions were made available, only to indicate that the workability of the scheme is in larger public interest, but it is the private interest which motivated action for deletion at every stage. 20. Even while safeguarding private interest, there is no uniform pattern applied by the State Government or by the authority, but it is a case of pick and choose, as persons who are able to impress upon the authorities, have been able to get their lands excluded from the scope of acquisition whereas, helpless, poor, gullible persons like the appellants and others are left languishing in the name of the authority doing same public good and in the name of the power of eminent domain of the State of acquire private land for public purposes. 21. A power exercised in an arbitrary, whimsical manner, a power exercised for favouring some and for ignoring others, even when the exercise of the power is questioned before the Court and at the instance of aggrieved persons, cannot, pass muster before the Court on the touchstone of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. We have noticed all these developments, as we find that the entire scheme is now flawed. It is not one which can be worked to the disadvantage of only remaining persons whereas, those who got out of the scheme stand to benefit to their great advantage. Such cannot be the result of exercise of power by an instrumentality of the State Authority and the State Government. 22. It is not one which can be worked to the disadvantage of only remaining persons whereas, those who got out of the scheme stand to benefit to their great advantage. Such cannot be the result of exercise of power by an instrumentality of the State Authority and the State Government. 22. There is no compulsion on the part of the development authority to propose any and every scheme and to implement a scheme however truncated or reduced in its original size. Any scheme should be a workable scheme and should be for the larger public good. 23. Though Sri Mekki, learned counsel for the authority has submitted that the authority has received thousands of applications form persons aspiring for allotment of sites and even with the remaining extent of about 44 acres, there is a possibility of the authority forming a layout with about 400 sites being formed, that cannot be a consideration which can outweigh the arbitrary and mala fide exercise of power in the name of implementing the scheme. If such exercise of power is to be ignored, then it amounts to a failure on the part of this Court which has a constitutional duty not only to safeguard the interest of a citizen, but also to see that the State does not cross its limits, does not violates statutory provisions and functions within the constitutional limitations. 24. We have no doubt in our mind that the manner in which the power is exercised for the purpose of the scheme and consequently, acquisition of land by compulsion is flawed by the arbitrary exercise of power and is hit by Article 14 and therefore, we are left with no choice but to quash the entire developmental scheme and the notification dated 14.11.2000 issued under section 17(1) of the Act and all further proceedings including the notifications/declarations of the State Government and the orders passed by the authorities, by issue of a writ certiorari. 25. The authority is directed to restore all the lands to its original owners, which have been acquired under the proposed Amargol village developmental scheme in exercise of the statutory powers under the Act. 26. 25. The authority is directed to restore all the lands to its original owners, which have been acquired under the proposed Amargol village developmental scheme in exercise of the statutory powers under the Act. 26. It is open to any of the owner to voluntarily surrender lands in favour of the authority, which the authority can accept on payment of price etc., which cannot be subject matter of acquisition proceedings and not within the scope of scrutiny by this Court. 27. Writ appeal is allowed. Order of the learned Single Judge set aside. Writ Petition allowed. A writ of certiorari issued and rule made absolute.