Bengaluru: A family living in the city has been allowed by the High Court of Bengaluru to alienate a part of their property even though it has already been notified for acquisition.
The Court’s exceptional order came as three of the family members are cancer patients who need timely treatment.
Justice Krishna S Dixit in his judgement on March 27 said, “In the exceptional circumstances of this case, denying relief to terminally ailing citizens, especially when their property in question is the only means of holding the body and soul together by securing medical treatment, would render the constitutional guarantee to life a mere farce.
“To put it in the words of late Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court, the Constitution will be nothing more than a ‘parchment guarantee’. Therefore, petitioners need to be permitted to alienate or encumber a reasonable portion of the property that is still in the initial process of acquisition so that they can keep their life boat afloat.”
Allowing the family to alienate 50 percent of the property, the HC in its judgment said, “If the petitioners are not permitted to encumber or alienate the subject property which is their only source of income, from which the required medical treatment can be hopefully bought, they may fall prey to the predatory disease of the kind; thus, the long pendency of acquisition process itself would imperil their life unless some ‘exit strategy’ is worked out within the framework of the law consistent with the requirement of justice of the times, in which petitioners are placed by the conspiracy of circumstances beyond their control.”
Five members of the family had approached the HC seeking permission to alienate their property of 2 acres and 3 guntas of land which was notified for acquisition under the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Act.
The petition was filed “since the funds are urgently needed for the medical treatment of some of them who are suffering from the hereditary terminal disease i.e., cancer of varying stages.”
Ruling in their favour, the HC said, “Where the life of a citizen depends upon a certain property and the same is being taken away in an acquisition process, though lawfully launched, the delayed accomplishment of the said process and the delay that would eventually be brooked in the payment of compensation till such accomplishment happens, in the given circumstances of the case, would metaphorically amount to taking away the ‘oxygen mask’ from the gasping patient in the Intensive Care Unit.”
The five people who approached the court seeking relief are a 72-year-old woman and her four children. The woman and her two sons are suffering from cancer.
The only daughter is taking care of them, and the 2 acre 3 guntas of property was the only source of income for the family.
The counsel for Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) informed the court that the acquisition process was delayed due to disputes with other property owners and could not be speeded up.
The buyers of the property would have the right to claim compensation from KIADB when the acquisiton is complete.
“The buyers/mortgagees shall have right to claim compensation or its enhancement, should acquisition of the property be accomplished in due course and in the case of delayed acquisition, to lay a claim for interest,” the HC said.
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