Karnataka High Court directs NHAI to return land 15 years after acquisition in Mangaluru to its owner for not publishing his name in notification  

Karnataka High Court orders NHAI to return land to owner due to lack of property details in acquisition notification.

The High Court of Karnataka has directed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to return a property, which it acquired in Mangaluru city 15 years ago, back to the owner for not publishing the name of the owner and the extent of the land required for the highway project in the acquisition notification.

If the NHAI had already put up any constructions on the land, it has to remove them and return the land to the owner, who is free to use the land for his personal use, the court said.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj passed the order while allowing a petition, filed in 2016 by S.N.D. Sampath, a resident of Mangaluru.

The NHAI had issued notifications under Section 3 of the National Highways (NH) Act, 1956, for acquiring several properties, including the petitioner’s property bearing city corporation No. 10/60//1 situated on Nehru Road, Gorigudda, Kankanady ‘B’ village, Mangalore city.

However, the preliminary notification issued under Section 3A of the Act did not contain the petitioner’s name or property number but mentioned only the survey number, and due to this, the petitioner was not aware of the acquisition proceedings and could not file his objection. However, he came to know about the acquisition process when the NHAI initiated payment of compensation.

The NHAI claimed before the court that there is no requirement to either mention the plot number, sub-number or the name of the owner of the property in the acquisition notification, and what is required to be mentioned is only a brief description of the land which has been mentioned as a survey number.

Refusing to accept the NHAI’s contention, the court pointed out that the final notification, though mentioned that 1,244 sq. m of land is to be acquired in survey number 101/1A and published the names of about 25 persons owning the properties in this survey number, it did not specify the extent of land required from each owner. The NHAI could not explain to the court what was the extent of land required from the property owned by the petitioner in that survey number.