UNION OF INDIA Vs. ANGRUP THAKUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Letters Patent Appeal has been preferred against the judgment of a learned Single Judge of this Court dismissing a petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution questioning the proceedings for the compulsory acquisition of the land measuring about 84 bighas and 11 biswas belonging to the writ petitionors. Shri Angrap Thakur and others, respondnts in the present appeal. Notification under section 4 of the Land acquisition Act (here after called the Act) was issued in January, 1915 and under section 6, in October, 1985. According to the notification under section 4, it appeared to the Governor of Panjab that land was likely to be required to be taken by Government at the the public expense for a pablic purpose, namely, for the construction of building and doing research work on vegetables" and in the notification under section 6, the Governor of Punjab was stated to be satisfied that the land in question was "needed by the Government at pablic expenses for a public purpose namely for the construction of buildings and doing research work on vegetables at Indian Agricultural Research Institute Vegetable Breeding Sub-station Katrain Kulu Valley) and it was declared that the land in question was required for the abova purposes. As is applrent the Governor of Punjab was the author of both these notifications

(2.) Objections under section 5.A of the Act to the notification under section 4 were presented by the writ prititioners and according to their averments in the writ petition, they were never called by the Collector, nor did they ever appear before him in connection with the hearing of those objections The other objection pressed before the learned Single Judge was that the Indian Agricultural Research Institute Vegetable Breeding Sub-Station Katrain was owned and managed and run by the Government of India, with the result that the acquisition of land for the purposaes of the said Institute must be the purples of the Union and that under section 3 of the Act, the Central Government was the aopropriate Government for the purposes of the notifications under sections 4 and 6 of the Act. the panjab Government was according to this averment, not the approprats Government and the two notifications were, therefore, unauthorised and a nullity.

(3.) The learned sinngle Judge, after considering the unsatisfactory nature of the retun, thought it necessary to a;o into the record which was made available by the learned counsel for the respondents and on perusnal of those records he came to the conclusion that a notice fixing 12th April 1965 for hearing the objections under section 5-A had been sent to and received by the writ petitioners who apoeaied before the Collector on that date and made a joint statement signed by them. In that statement, they reiterated their objections died by them under section 5-A and also required the Collector to await the result of their representation made against the acquisition to the Minister concernad. But they did not ask for any oppertunity to lead evidence or to address further arguments. On this states of the record, the learned Single Judge held that the peritioriersbad been heard. Certain executive ins- tructions relied upon by the learned counsel for the writ petitioners were held not to amount to legally binding directions, the non-observance of which could have the effect of nullitying the order on the objections under section 5-A.