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A three Judge Bench of this Court in the case of Land Acquisition Officer,
City Improvement Trust Board v. H. Narayanaiah [(1976) 4 SCC 9], while
dealing with the provisions of the City of Bangalore Improvement Act, 1945 and
the Mysore Land Acquisition Act, 1894, held that the expression used in Section
27 of the City of Bangalore Improvement Act, 1945 was somewhat similar to
Section 36 of the present BDA Act. It provided that acquisition, other than by
way of agreement, shall be regulated by provisions, so far as they are
applicable, of Mysore Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The Court while taking the
view that the provisions of Section 23 of the Mysore Act may be applicable to
the acquisitions under the Bangalore Act, other provisions of the same would
stand excluded as per the intention of the framers, held as under:
“22. There was some argument on the meaning of the
words “so far as they are applicable”, used in Section 27
of the Bangalore Act. These words cannot be changed
into “insofar as they are specifically mentioned” with
regard to the procedure in the Acquisition Act. On the
other hand, the obvious intention, in using these words,
was to exclude only those provisions of the Acquisition
Act which become inapplicable because of any special
procedure prescribed by the Bangalore Act (e.g. Section
16) corresponding with that found in the Acquisition Act
[e.g. Section 4(1)]. These words bring in or make
applicable, so far as this is reasonably possible, general
provisions such as Section 23(1) of the Acquisition Act.
They cannot be reasonably construed to exclude the
application of any general provisions of the Acquisition
Act. They amount to laying down the principle that what
is not either expressly, or, by a necessary implication,
excluded must be applied. It is surprising to find
misconstruction of what did not appear to us to be
reasonably open to more than one interpretation.”
Applying the above principle to the facts of the case in hand, it will be
clear that the provisions relating to acquisition like passing of an award,
payment of compensation and the legal remedies available under the Central
Act would have to be applied to the acquisitions under the State Act but the bar
contained in Sections 6 and 11A of the Central Act cannot be made an integral
part of the State Act as the State Act itself has provided specific time-frames
under its various provisions as well as consequences of default thereto. The
scheme, thus, does not admit such incorporation.
These controversies have drawn attention of this Court on different
occasions in the past as well. It will be of great help to discuss the previous
judgments of this Court on the issues involved in the present case relating to
the same or similar legislations. In the case of H. Narayanaiah (supra), while
dealing with the City of Bangalore Improvement Act, 1945 which was repealed
by the BDA Act, this Court observed in para 4 of the judgment, “it does not,
however, contain a separate Code of its own for such acquisition……….” but,
after discussing the scheme under the old Act, the Court held that the
provisions of Bangalore Act, 1945 were not similar to those of the Mysore Land
Acquisition Act and its general provisions, only in relation to acquisition
could be read into the Bangalore Act as other provisions stood excluded by the
language of Section 27 of that Act. After the BDA Act came into force, the
scheme was subjected to consideration of this Court in Munithimmaiah v. State
of Karnataka [(2002) 4 SCC 326] wherein the Court discussed the provisions of
the BDA Act vis-à-vis the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 as
amended by the Central Act 68 of 1984. The Court took the view that the BDA
Act is a complete code in itself. It is an Act which provide for planned
development and growth of Bangalore and not just ‘acquisition of land’. The
law relating to acquisition of land, i.e. the Land Acquisition Act, is a special law
for a special purpose. Describing the BDA Act as complete code, the Court
held that the provisions of Section 11A of the Land Acquisition need not be read
into the State Act. After noting the meticulous comparative analysis of the
relevant provisions of the BDA Act and the Land Acquisition Act by the High
Court this Court further observed that scheme of Land Acquisition Act, as
modified by the BDA Act, would only be applicable by reason of provisions of
Sections 17, 18, 27 and 36 of the BDA Act and held as under :