DEVENDER KUMAR TYAGI Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioners have filed this writ petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, inter alia, challenging the Notification dated 03.7.2006 issued under Section 4 and the Notification dated 18.12.2007 issued under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as "the LA Act") for acquiring their lands for a planned development of the Leather City Project in order to relocate bone mills and allied industries by invoking the urgency provisions under Section 17(1) and 17(4) of the LA Act.

(2.) This Court is monitoring the re-location of the bone mills and allied industries in the various parts of State of Uttar Pradesh including the district of Ghaziabad in the public interest proceedings, which were initiated in the year 1994. Since then, this Court has time and again issued various orders and directions including inspection of polluting bone industries in Ghaziabad by the U.P. Pollution Control Board (hereinafter referred to as "the UPPCB") and Central Pollution Control Board (hereinafter referred to as "the CPCB"). This Court, vide its Order dated 17.08.2004 in the Civil Appeal No. 3633-3634 of 1999 (U.P. Pollution Control Board v. Anil K. Karnwal and Ors.), which is still pending before us, had directed the Respondents to relocate the bone mills and allied industries as per the recommendations of the CPCB and further directed the Respondents to identify the definite area suitable for relocation of the said industries. Pursuant to this Order, the Respondents had filed an affidavit before this Court in the month of December, 2004, inter alia, proposing the Leather City Project for relocation of the said bone industries.

(3.) In this backdrop, the Respondents had issued a Notification dated 03.7.2006 under Section 4 read with Section 17(4) of the LA Act for acquisition of 28.804 hectares of the land at village Imtori, Chitoli, Sabli of Hapur-Pargana in the district of Ghaziabad for the public purpose of planned development of the Leather City Project by invoking the urgency provision under the LA Act, thereby, dispensing with inquiry under Section 5A of the LA Act. The same was published in two daily Hindi newspapers on 04.07.2006. Subsequently, the English version of the said Notification was also published in two daily newspapers dated 24.01.2007. The relevant part of the Notification is extracted below: