PHAGWARA IMPROVEMENT TRUST Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals on special leave are directed against the judgment and order passed by the division bench of the High court of Punjab and Haryana in Letters Patent Appeal Nos. 694 to 697 of 1982 dismissing the appeals with costs. The salient fact out of which these appeals have arisen, are as follows:

(2.) Against this judgment and order the instant appeals on special leave have been filed in this court. Mr Mahajan, learned counsel appearing on. behalf of respondent 2 and others has very strenuously contended that the provisions of S. 36 of the said Act are mandatory inasmuch as it provides for publication of the notice as to the framing of the scheme under the Act in three consecutive weeks in the official Gazette as well as in the newspaper with a statement inviting objections. Though the notice was duly published in the newspaper Tribune for three consecutive weeks on April 9, 16 and 23, 1976 notifying the date for filing objections till 5/05/1976 yet the notification that was published in the Punjab government Gazette for three consecutive weeks was admittedly after the expiry of period of filing objections i. e. 5/05/1976. It has, therefore, been contended by Mr Mahajan that due to non-publication of the scheme in the government Gazette before the expiry of the period of filing objections against the proposed scheme, the valuable right of the respondents to file objections against the scheme has been done away with. As such the publication of the scheme was rightly quashed by the courts below as this mandatory requirement had not been complied with by the State. In this connection, he has referred to the case of Prof. Jodh Singh v. Jullundur Improvement Trust, Jullundur. This case was decided by the full bench of the High court of Punjab and Haryana as to whether issuance of a notification under Ss. (1 of S. 42 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922, would bar a challenge to the validity of the scheme or the governmental sanction thereto for any reason including the reason that the scheme had been framed and sanctioned without compliance of the mandatory provisions particularly those of S. 36, 38 and Ss. (1 of S. 40 of the Act. It was held that:

(3.) In that case a notice under S. 38 of the Act was issued on the petitioner who submitted objections in time. In the return filed on behalf of the Trust it was admitted that due to oversight, the petitioners could not be called for hearing along with other objectors as the objections filed by the petitioners had inadvertently got placed in some other file and that for the same reason their objections were neither considered by the Trust nor forwarded to the State government along with the summary of the objections submitted at the time of sanction for the said scheme. It was contended on behalf of the Trust that the infirmity, if any, stemming from the non-consideration by the Trust of the objections filed by the petitioners and sanction of the scheme by the government in ignorance of the said fact stood cured by the provisions of Ss. (2 of S. 42 of the Act. It was in that context the above observation was made by the full bench.