Indian High Courts Uphold Land Acquisition in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka

The Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed a batch of five writ appeals filed by McDowell & Co. Ltd., ruling that the company could not reopen a decades‑long land dispute by claiming statutory notices had been issued to its predecessor. The case concerned about 4.31 hectares at Waltair Uplands, Visakhapatnam, where exemption under the Urban Land Ceiling Act had been withdrawn and acquisition proceedings initiated. The court imposed exemplary costs of Rs 50,000 on each appeal and held the plea to be an abuse of process.

In Karnataka, a division bench of the High Court rejected a public‑interest litigation challenging the state’s notification to acquire 7,400 acres across nine villages for the Greater Bengaluru Integrated Township (Bidadi township) project, a flagship scheme of Chief Minister D K Shivakumar. The court said it could not review the merits of the development plan and rejected arguments that the acquisition under the KUDA Act was illegal because compensation would be governed by the 2013 land‑acquisition law.