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When authorities acquisition of backstage lands is backed by a statutory mandate, subserved by nationalist intent and accompanied by the provisions of just compensation; the hardships oregon idiosyncratic conveniences of idiosyncratic landowners cannot beryllium allowed to stall projects of nationwide priority, the Madras High Court said connected Monday (June 22, 2026).
Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan made the reflection portion dismissing a writ entreaty filed by K. Sampath, whose lands had been acquired for laying a wide gauge railway enactment betwixt Morappur and Dharmapuri. He had challenged the proceedings nether the Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Industrial Purposes Act, 1997.
The appellant told the tribunal that the officials had primitively intended to get 1.02.92 hectares of his onshore for the project. However, the alignment was thereafter changed and they decided to get lone 0.26.00 hectares from him. Nevertheless, helium complained determination were ambiguities regarding the nonstop grade of the layout and the specifications successful the last notification.
The tribunal was told the nonaccomplishment to supply a wide layout program had severely handicapped the appellant’s quality to utilise oregon alienate the unacquired information of his cultivation holding. On the different hand, Additional Solicitor General AR.L. Sundaresan assured the tribunal a corrigendum would beryllium issued to the last notification incorporating exhaustive details of the nonstop onshore sought to beryllium acquired.
After signaling the ASG’s submission, the judges said, nary surviving prejudice could beryllium legitimately claimed by the appellant successful presumption of the undertaking fixed by the instrumentality serviceman representing the Southern Railway. The Bench besides stated that Justice Krishnan Ramasamy had rightly dismissed the writ petition filed by the appellant by considering the nationalist value of the railway project.
“The task nether execution, viz., the instauration of a caller wide gauge railway enactment linking Morappur with Dharmapuri, is an infrastructure task of paramount nationalist interest. It is simply a trite that idiosyncratic involvement indispensable output to the larger nationalist good, provided the acquisition follows the owed process of law... In the lack of mala fides oregon patent perversity, this tribunal cannot substitute its ain views for the considered contented of the experts who calibrate alignments based connected structural stability, information parameters and optimal nationalist utility,” the Division Bench wrote.
