MANSOOR KHAN Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by certificate against the .judgment of a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissing in limine a batch of writ petitions filed by the appellants questioning the proceedings taken to acquire their lands under the Uttar Pradesh Avas Evam Vikas Parishad Adhiniyam, 1965 (U. P. Act 1 of 1966). Under this Act a Board called the Uttar Pradesh Avas Evam Vikas Parishad is constituted. That/ Board has the power to frame and carry out various types of housing and improvement schemes and for that purpose also to acquire properties. The particular scheme for the purpose of which the impugned land acquisition proceedings were initiated was a land development scheme under S. 25 of the Act. Under Section 28 when any housing or improvement scheme has been framed, the Board shall prepare a notice to that effect and cause it to be duly published and invite objections. Section 30, mentions persons and bodies which can file objections. Under S. 31 after considering the objections, if any, received and after giving an opportunity of being heard to the objectors, the Board may, so far as may be, within six months from the date of receipt of the last such objection, either abandon the scheme or if the estimated cost of the scheme does not exceed twenty lakhs of rupees, sanction it with or without modifications, and if the estimated cost of the scheme exceeds twenty lakhs of rupees, submit it to the State Government for sanction with such modifications, if any, as the Board may suggest. The State Government may sanction with or without modifications, or refuse to sanction, or return for reconsideration any scheme submitted to it under subsection (1). Under Section .32 whenever the Board or the State Government sanctions a housing or improvement scheme, it shall be notified in the Gazette and the notification in respect of any scheme shall be conclusive evidence that the scheme has been duly framed and sanctioned. If the scheme is one sanctioned by the Board an appeal to the State Government is also provided. The present scheme is one sanctioned by the State Government as its cost exceeds Rs. 20 lakhs. The scheme in question called the Karaili Land Development Scheme was notified under Section 28 on 27-71967 and objections were invited. The appellants filed their objections and the Board heard them on 30-1-1968. Representations had also been made by the appellants to the Government on 13-7-1970. The scheme was sanctioned on 17-7-1970. On 14-5-1971 the appellants received notices under Sections 9 (3) and 17 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and thereupon filed a petition challenging the proposed acquisition which was dismissed in limine by the High Court.

(2.) Before us Mr. V. C. Parashar vigorously urged many contentions of which we are mentioning below only the relevant ones:

(3.) Under Section 6 of the U. P. (Regulation of Building Operations) Act, l958, no person shall undertake or carry out the development of any site in any regulated area or erect, re-erect or make any material change in any building or snake or extend any excavation or lay out any means of access to a road in such area except in accordance with the directions, if any, issued under this Act and with previous permission of the prescribed Authority in writing. It is admitted that the area proposed to be acquired is a regulated area. We do not see any substance in the contention that as no sanction under this section had been taken the acquisition proceedings are ultra vires. This section is intended to prevent haphazard development of regulated areas and cannot apply where a Board like the U. P. Avas Evam Vikas Parishad frames schemes for the express purpose of regulated development. The acts mentioned in that section have not yet even begun and even if they are so begun there may be room for objecting to those acts without complying with its provisions but it cannot have any relevance to the proceedings for acquiring land for a scheme which may perhaps in due course lead to such acts being done. It is at that stage, if at all, that that section ought to be relied upon if it is contravened.