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Madhya Pradesh High Court · body

2014 DIGILAW 552 (MP)

Bhailal Charmkar v. State of M. P.

2014-05-07

ALOK ARADHE

body2014
ORDER 1. Heard on I.A. No.3299/2014, an application for vacating stay. 2. Learned senior counsel for the respondent No.4 while inviting the attention of this Court to Gazette notification dated 24th December 2013 has submitted that the respondent No.4 is a government company and therefore the provisions of Part-VII of the Land Acquisition Act,1894(hereinafter referred to as 'Act') are not required to be followed in case of acquisition of land for respondent No.4. It is further submitted that total cost of the project is Rs.3000 Crores and on account of order of stay granted by a Bench of this Court, the work of execution of the project is being delayed, which in turn is causing loss to the public exchequer, therefore, the interim order be vacated. 3. On the other hand, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner had filed an objection (Annexure-P-2) before the Collector however the aforesaid objection has not been decided till today. It is further submitted that the provisions of Part-VII of the Act have not been followed, therefore, the proceeding for acquisition of the land is vitiated in law. In support of aforesaid submission, learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on a decision in the case of Vijay Singh and others v. State of M.P and others 2009(3) JLJ 70 = 2009(4) MPJL 577. 4. I have considered the respective submissions made by learned counsel for parties. section 3(cc) of the Act defines expression 'corporation owned or controlled by the State' which reads as under :- 3.(cc) the expression 'corporation' owned or controlled by the State means anybody corporate established by or under a Central, Provincial or State Act, and includes a Government company as defined in section 617 of the Companies Act, 1956(1 of 1956), a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (21 of 1960), or under any corresponding law for the time being in force in a State being a society established or administered by Government and a co-operative society within the meaning of any law relating to co-operative societies for the time being in force in any State, being a co-operative society in which not less than fifty one per centum of the paid up share capital is held by the Central Government, or by any State Government or Governments, or partly by the Central Government and partly by one or more State Governments” 5. section 3(e) of the Act defines the expression Company, the relevant extract of section 3(e) reads as under :- 3(e) (I) a company as defined in section 3 of the Companies Act, 1956 (1 of 1956), other than a Government company referred to in Clause (cc). 6. If section 3(cc) and section 3(e) of the 'Act' are read conjointly, it is evident that the expression 'company' does not include government company. From perusal of the Gazzette notification Annexure-R-1 dated 24th December 2003, it is evident that the respondent No.5 is a government company, therefore the provisions of part-VII of the Act prima facie are not required to be followed in the matter of acquisition of the land for the company. So far as the objection preferred by the petitioner is concerned, it is evident that the aforesaid objection has been filed by the petitioner before the Collector and not before the Land Acquisition Officer. In the objection preferred by the petitioner the petitioner has not challenged validity of the acquisition proceeding on the ground that the provisions of Part-VII of the Act have not been followed in the objection preferred by the petitioner, he only seeks appointment for his sons. It is also pertinent to mention here that in case the order of stay is allowed to continue, the progress of the project work would be hampered which in turn would cause loss to the public exchequer as the cost of project would escalate. When a query was put to learned counsel for the petitioner, whether the petitioner would be able to provide security for any increase in cost as a result of such delay or any damages, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner is a poor farmer and is unable to furnish any security. In such circumstances, the public detriment may outweigh public benefit in granting the interim order. See:-Raunaq International Ltd. v. IVR Construction Ltd and others, (1999)1 SCC 492 . The decision relied on by learned counsel for the petitioner in the case of Vijay Singh (supra) is of no assistance as the same deals with the case of Company. It is made clear that the observations contained in this order/findings have been made only for the purposes of deciding the application for vacating stay and shall have no bearing on the merits of the case. 7. It is made clear that the observations contained in this order/findings have been made only for the purposes of deciding the application for vacating stay and shall have no bearing on the merits of the case. 7. For the aforementioned reasons, the ad-interim order dated 15.1.2014 passed by a Bench of this Court is vacated.