SHYAM NANDAN PRASAD Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Special leave granted in this bunch of petitions.

(2.) These appeals are directed against the common judgment and order dated 22-2-90 passed by a Division Bench of the Patna High Court in a batch of writ petitions, preferred before it in the years 1983 and 1984, excepting one in the year 1988, whereby declaration under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act (the Act) dated 16/ 18-3-83 was quashed and the case remitted to the State Government for further proceedings under two heads.

(3.) The appellants herein are a few members of the Bihar Finance Service House Construction Co-operative Society, a society registered way back in the year 1973, under the Bihar and Orissa Co-operative Societies Act. Its members, the appellants-State, are about 400 in number. It was stated to have been floated by members of the Bihar Finance Service who were landless and did not own any residential plot or house in the city of Patna. Statedly, its membership was not confined to the members of the Bihar Finance Service alone but was open to everyone who was similarly landless. The Society was organised and knit to secure from the State Government land by acquisition so that the society could give plots to its members or build houses and give them to its members. For the purpose, in 1973 itself it put a proposal to the State Government to acquire 59.95 acres of land in the revenue estate of village Kumhrar, a part of the city of Patna. After some steps the State Government issued a notification under Section 4 of the Act on 21-4-81 inviting interested persons to file their objections under Section 5A of the said Act. On objections received from interested persons AND disposed of by the Additional Land Collector AND on report submitted, declaration under Section 6 of the Act was made to acquire land to the extent aforementioned except 5 acres which were set apart for allotment to persons likely to be disturbed by the acquisition. On writ petitions filed, the High Court quashed the declaration under Sec. 6 remitting back the matter to the State Government for reconsideration on two counts, one such count being violation of the mandatory provisions of Section 5-A. This is how the matter has come before us in appeal.