Krishna Kumar and ors. Vs. State of U.P. - Court Judgment

Excerpt:
- land acquisition act, 1894 [c.a. no. 1/1894]. section 4; [sushil harkauli, s.k. singh & krishna murari, jj] acquisition of land held, court cannot issue a writ of mandamus directing the state authorities to acquire a particular land. land acquisition is not purely ministerial act to be performed by executive no direction in nature of mandamus whether interim or final can be issued by court under article 226 necessarily to acquire particular land in public interest. land acquisition is not a purely ministerial act to be performed by the executive and therefore, no mandamus can be issued by the court in exercise of its power under article 226 of the constitution, whether suo motu or otherwise, whether in public interest litigation or otherwise directing acquisition of land under the provisions of land acquisition act, 1894. it would, however, be open to the court in exercise of that power to invite the attention of the executive to any public purpose and the need for land for meeting that public purpose and to require the executive to take a decision, even a reasoned decision, with regard to the same in accordance with the statutory provisions, perhaps even within a reasonable time frame. however, the power of the court under article 226 must necessarily stop at that. thereafter, if the decision taken by the executive is capable of challenge and, there exist appropriate legal grounds for such challenge, it may also be open to the court to quash the decision and to require reconsideration. but no direction in the nature of mandamus whether interim or final can be issued by the court under article 226 to the executive to necessarily acquire a particular area of a particular piece of land for a particular public purpose. section 4; compulsory acquisition of land powers of state government held, renewal of lease in favour of petitioners would not take away power of state government of compulsory acquisition of land. renewal of lease would at best be taken into consideration for determining quantum of compensation. tarun agarwala, j.1. heard the learned counsel for the parties.the petitioner was appointed as a peon in the year 1997 and is working in that capacity since then. the petitioner applied for regularisation of his services which was rejected by the impugned order on the ground that there is a ban imposed by the state government on fresh appointment. the petitioner being aggrieved by the said order has filed the present writ petition.2. in my opinion, the impugned order cannot be sustained. presuming that the state government had imposed a ban, the said ban can only be operative for fresh appointment and cannot come in the way for regularisation of the services of an existing employee.3. in view of the aforesaid, the impugned order cannot be sustained and is quashed. the writ petition is allowed. the matter is remitted to the authority again to decide the claim of the petitioner with regard to the regularisation of the services within six weeks from the date of the production of a certified copy of this order.