land, calling upon them to submit their objections, if any, to the proposed acquisition, in order to enable the authority to execute works of improvement in relation to the land in question, which constituted a slum area. The land had been declared as a slum on 30th September 1977 and the declaration of the land as a slum area held the field, without objection by the erstwhile owners, for nearly 28 years before the notice of acquisition was issued. Both the Petitioners submitted their replies to the notice of acquisition on 10th December 2005. Acting at the behest of the Petitioners, a Member of the Legislative Assembly submitted a representation to the Chief Minister on 21st March 2006 against the acquisition. As envisaged in Section 14, a report was submitted by the Additional Collector to the State Government on 3rd January 2006 inter alia containing his recommendations in respect of the objections raised to the acquisition. Upon considering the report, the State Government issued a final notification on 11th May 2006. Whereas, the original notice of acquisition had proposed an acquisition of a total extent of 7291 sq.mtrs., the final notification provides for the acquisition of an area admeasuring 5820.61 sq.mtrs. That is because, in the meantime, the Municipal Corporation had already acquired a portion of the land falling
