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Gunasekaran v. The Divisional Engineer, National Highways & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 420Decided 24 Aug 2021
Civil Appeal No. 4946 of 2021
Justice K.M. Joseph · Justice S. Ravindra Bhat

Background

Several people received show cause notices alleging they had encroached on land forming part of a National Highway in Tamil Nadu. The notices were issued by a state highways officer purporting to act under Section 28(2)(ii) of the Tamil Nadu State Highways Act, 2001. The recipients challenged the notices before the Madras High Court, arguing that a state law could not be used to deal with encroachments on a National Highway, which is governed by separate central legislation. The High Court dismissed their writ petitions, reasoning that since the State's Highways Department supervised and maintained that stretch of road under a central notification, the officer had jurisdiction.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that while the National Highways Act, 1956 does allow the Central Government to delegate maintenance functions to State authorities, the specific power to identify and remove encroachments on National Highway land is governed by a separate, later law, the Control of National Highways (Land and Traffic) Act, 2002, which created a dedicated "Highway Administration" mechanism with its own notice-and-removal procedure under Section 26. Since the impugned notices were issued under the state highways law rather than by the Highway Administration constituted under the 2002 Act, the issuing officer lacked jurisdiction to act against National Highway encroachments. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment and quashed the show cause notices, while expressly clarifying that the competent authority remains free to take fresh action under the correct 2002 Act procedure.

Lesson Learnt

Government authorities must act strictly under the specific law that empowers them for a particular task: a notice issued under the wrong statute can be struck down for lack of jurisdiction, even if some other, correct legal route to the same action exists and remains open.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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