New Delhi: A huge tract of land — measuring 50,000 bighas or 31,250 acres — in the prime location of Chhattarpur in south Delhi will now be available for planned development of the capital.

For, the Supreme Court on Monday closed the 30-year-old litigation on the land while upholding the government notifications issued in November 1980. However, utilization of the land could pose problems for the government as many unauthorized colonies have cropped up there and are candidates for regularization under the Delhi Laws (Special Provision) Act, which was enacted primarily to save them from the apex court’s hammer against illegal constructions.

The land falling under 13 villages is now either part of the urbanized areas in the capital or on its outskirts and was notified for acquisition by Lt Governor of Delhi on November 5 and November 25 in 1980.

The SC dismissed as many as 104 petitions filed by villagers alleging that the notification was improper and did not follow the procedure prescribed under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

A bench comprising Justices V S Sirpurkar and Deepak Verma faulted the petitioners for filing meritless pleas and imposed a cost of Rs 10,000 on each of them. This means the petitioners together would pay Rs 10,40,000 as cost.

In its judgement on Monday, the Bench said there was nothing wrong in the decision of the government to issue piecemeal declarations under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, pursuant to the notification issued under Section 4 of the Act as there was no stay from any court on the latter.

‘‘No doubt, it is true that language of Section 6 of the Act implies that declarations can be issued piecemeal and it is not necessary to issue one single declaration for whole of the area which is covered under notification issued under Section 4 of the Act,’’ it said, accepting counsel Rachna Srivastava’s argument on behalf of Delhi government.

Referring to the planned development of the city, the bench said, ‘‘Parliament was aware of such a type of situation and that is why such a right has been carved out in favour of the state. In many cases, the urgency clause may be invoked and, therefore, the right to file objections under Section 5A of the Act would not arise.’’

‘‘In some cases, even though objections might be preferred under Section 5A of the Act, but, may not be pressed in spite of knowledge of acquisition of land. Some of the land owners may not prefer to file any objections at all. In order to meet such type of exigencies as may arise in the case, power has been given by Parliament to the executive to issue declarations in piecemeal under Section 6 of the Act, wherever it may be feasible to implement the scheme,’’ said Justice Verma writing the judgment for the Bench.

Aggrieved by the issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act, the land owners had filed writ petitions challenging the acquisition in Delhi High Court. The HC had dismissed the petitions and the order attained finality as it was not challenged in the apex court.

However, fresh petitions were filed in the HC against Delhi administration’s declaration/notification issued under Section 6 of the Act. It, too, was rejected by the HC. This time, the petitioners filed appeals against the HC order in SC.

Taking into account the earlier HC order attaining finality, the SC rejected the petitioners and said, ‘‘The notification under Section 4(1) of the Act being a composite one, it would not be proper and legally justifiable to quash the same, more so when most of the appellants had not filed any objections under Section 5A of the Act. Thus, the declarations issued under Section 6 of the Act cannot be quashed.’’