Observing that “acquiring land for a profitable private entity under the guise of public purpose amounts to a fraud on statute and the Constitution”, the High Court of Karnataka has quashed the State government’s 2012 notifications acquiring private lands for the benefit of the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers Association (IMTMA) for constructing multi-level car parking facilities for its Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) on Tumkuru Road.
A division bench comprising Justice D.K. Singh and Justice T.M. Nadaf allowed a batch of appeals filed by Mukesh Kumar and other landowners from Madanayakanahalli village, while setting aside a 2013 single-judge order that had partially upheld the acquisition notifications of 2012.
The Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) had acquired the lands under the provisions of the KIAD Act and the landowners had challenged the acquisition by arguing that it was not for a genuine public purpose.
‘Profit making entity’
“The government cannot acquire land for an individual entity of its choice at the expense and cost of poor landowners,” the Bench observed while noting that that IMTMA, a charitable company managing BIEC, is a financially robust entity with substantial profits, fully capable of purchasing land through private negotiations — as it had already purchased lands through private transaction for expansion of the activities of the BIEC.
“…it is nothing but a fraud committed on statute by the authorities to divest the landowners from their land holdings for a pittance in favour of a private entity for expansion of its business and making more and more profit. This kind of exercise of power is a statutory and constitutional fraud by the State authorities,” the Bench remarked on KIADB action of acquiring land in favour of IMTMA.
Pointing out that despite the final notification being issued in 2012, no compensation award was ever passed, and not a single rupee was deposited or paid to the landowners by the KIADB, the Bench held that this inordinate delay rendered the acquisition proceedings lapsed, violating the landowners’ right to an efficient and expeditious process as mandated by Article 300A of the Constitution.
Orderly development
The Bench said that the KIAD Act’s objective is to establish industrial areas for orderly development, and allot lands for private companies as per the procedure for establishment their industrial/business unit, and not to acquire land for a single private entity, an act the Bench termed a “colourable exercise of power.”
Published – June 04, 2026 11:58 pm IST
