The Hindu : Karnataka News : Single-judge order on Arkavathy stayed

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Single-judge order on Arkavathy stayed

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday stayed the operation of a single-judge order of April 15 quashing all the acquisition proceedings by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) for the formation of Arkavathy Layout.

Directed

A Division Bench, comprising Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice A.C. Kabbin, while granting an interim stay against the single-judge order also directed the BDA not to demolish any existing buildings in the area.

The Bench also directed landowners and house owners not to construct any new buildings and posted the case to May 5.

The Bench passed the orders on appeals by the BDA and the Land Acquisition Officer of the BDA seeking a stay on the single-judge order. The single judge had upheld the petitions by landowners of 16 villages, who had challenged the acquisition of their lands. The single judge had held that the BDA did not have the power or the jurisdiction to form layouts or undertake development works outside the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) limits.

Though the BDA Act empowered it to undertake development schemes in the Bangalore metropolitan area, Section 503-A of the Karnataka Municipal Corporation (KMC) Act specified that it could only be done by a metropolitan authority, the judge had said.

Appeal

In its appeal, the BDA said that it had received 2.3 lakh applications for 28,000 sites in the layout. The judgment was likely to affect other similar projects.

The BDA claimed it was a local authority constituted under legislation and had the jurisdiction to take up development works.

There was no conflict between the BDA Act and the KMC Act, it claimed.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka