In Brief
The appellants' land in Khurja, Uttar Pradesh, was acquired for a residential-commercial development scheme using the urgent acquisition power, which dispensed with the statutory right to file objections. The Supreme Court held that while the government has subjective power to declare urgency under the Land Acquisition Act, it must base this on relevant material and genuine need. Here, the government failed to establish real urgency: the Section 6 declaration was issued only on the eve of the first anniversary of the notification (suggesting urgency to avoid statutory lapse rather than public necessity), and key assertions about the land's location in the scheme's centre were uncontradicted. The Court quashed the acquisition, held that the urgency clause was unjustified, and restored the land to the appellants.
The lawyer headnote and full judgment text are available to registered users.