LAND ACQUIRED.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1920, Page 4

LAND ACQUIRED.

POWER OF PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT. AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT. By Telegraph.—Presi Association. ' Wellington, Last Night. . An important question affecting the power of the .Minister of Public Works to act compulsorily was decided by the Chief Justice this afternoon, in the case of Johnston & Co. v. the Minister of Public Works. Certain land belonging to the plaintiffs, a firm of Wellington merchants, was compulsorily acquired by the defendant under clause IS of the Act, for the purpose of a site for the erection of nn olike for the Public Trustee. The plaintiffs nought an injunction against the defendant's procedure, on the ground that the purpose was not one which came under the definition of a public work in the Act. The Public Trllkt was a corporation, and there was no authority to spend money out of th«' Consolidated fund for building Public Trust offices, and no statute allowing land to be compulsorily taken for a Public Trust office.

His Honor, in giving judgment lot plaintiff, held that if the Public Trustee could, by the aid of the Minister of Public Works, purchase compulsorily laud which must be vested in the Crown, the security of the aasurity and reserve fund of the Trust might vanish, and the beneficiaries of an estate hava their rights invaded. There was no power, therefore, to acquire land compilttorUy, and plaintiffs rajißt succeed.