The Bombay High Court has strongly rebuked the Maharashtra government and CIDCO for arbitrarily invoking the urgency clause under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, to acquire land for the Navi Mumbai International Airport.

In a landmark ruling, the court quashed the Section 6 declaration issued on 20 May 2015 and the subsequent award dated 7 July 2017, deeming the acquisition illegal. Section 6 permits the government to declare land as required for a public purpose, but the HC found that the authorities failed to justify bypassing the mandatory inquiry under Section 5A, which grants affected landowners the right to be heard.

The case involved petitions by agriculturists from Vahal village, Panvel, Raigad, whose land was acquired for ancillary works, including a sewage treatment plant. However, a bench of Justices MS Sonak and Jitendra Jain observed that no material evidence was provided to justify invoking urgency. “None of the affidavits explain or give any reasons for it,” the court noted.

The HC further pointed out that neither CIDCO nor the state government could produce any notification or direction invoking urgency. “There can be no deemed invocation of urgency. Either it is invoked after due record of satisfaction and application of mind, or it is not,” the court ruled, criticising the authorities for their “casualness or ambiguity” in handling the matter.

Citing a Supreme Court judgment, the court reaffirmed that landowners have a fundamental right to be heard before their land is forcibly acquired. “This right must be meaningful and not a sham,” it emphasised.

The court found that the agriculturists had filed objections within the stipulated time under Section 5A, yet their objections were ignored, and no hearing was granted—violating principles of natural justice and fair play.

It also highlighted contradictions in the government’s claim of urgency, noting that nearly two years had elapsed between the Section 4 notification (7 December 2013) and the Section 6 declaration (20 May 2015). Additionally, it took 13 months to publish the Section 4 notification in the village, further weakening the urgency claim.

The state’s advocate, AI Patel, was unable to confirm whether any urgency notification under Section 17(4) had been issued. The government failed to produce the document, merely arguing that since the Section 6 declaration referred to an urgency notification, “there must have been some such notification.” The court rejected this, stating that urgency provisions cannot be presumed without proof.

CIDCO’s counsel, GS Hegde, defended the acquisition, asserting that it served the ‘laudable purpose’ of township development and dismissed the petitioners’ objections as ‘technical pleas.’ He further claimed that hearings under Section 5A were unnecessary as the project was in the public interest. However, the HC rejected this argument, stressing that compliance with Section 5A is a statutory requirement. “Since a challenge was raised, the respondents had to justify invoking urgency by filing a proper affidavit with relevant material,” the court ruled.

As a result, the HC declared the urgency clause invocation unlawful, quashed the Section 6 declaration, and annulled the subsequent award. While it did not quash the Section 4 notification, it left open the question of compensation should the government proceed with the acquisition legally.

Additionally, the court noted that CIDCO’s assertion of possessing the land was contradicted by its own 2018 application seeking to vacate the interim relief granted to the petitioners.