MOTILAL VITHALBHAI PATEL Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a Rule taken out at the instance of the petitioner who is the owner of certain lands against the respondents the State of Gujarat and Messrs. Karamchand Premchand (Private) Ltd. to show cause why the two notifications dated 13th June 1958 and 3rd June 1960 issued by the State under Secs. 4 and 6 respectively of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 should not be declared to be ultra vires illegal and without jurisdiction or authority and the respondents directed to forbear from exercising any rights over those lands. The petition raises some questions of considerable importance and consequence. As identical questions were raised in a number of other petitions relating to adjoining lands in respect of which similar notifications have been issued and the respondents in all the petitions are the same we directed that they should all be heard together. The facts require to be stated with some fullness. Of some facts we shall however give only a resume and avoid certain details. The petitioner in Special Civil Application No. 346 of 1960 is the owner of Survey Numbers 126 and 127 admeasuring 9 acres and 6 gunthas and 1 acre and 35 gunthas situate within the Municipal limits of the Baroda Borough Municipality. He has built 31 houses on these lands which are in the area known as Nandanvan Colony. The property touches the National Highway. Respondent No. 2 a Private Limited Company is the sole proprietor of a factory known as Sarabhai Chemicals which manufactures drug medicines pharmaceuticals and antibiotics. On 7th December 1957 Respondent No. 2 wrote to the Collector of Baroda inter alia as under :

(2.) The Company shall

(3.) The argument of learned counsel for the company and the State Government on the other hand was that the Notification under section 6 is not invalid as there is substantial compliance with the provisions of section 41. It was said that the notification under section 6 in terms states that the acquisition was for a public purpose and therefore if the purpose of the acquisition was in fact a public purpose the mere absence in the agreement of any term on which the public shall be entitled to use the work for the construction of which land was being acquired cannot render the notification invalid in law. No attempt was made to support the notification on the ground that the acquisition was for the purpose of erecting dwelling houses for workmen or the provision of amenities connected therewith under sub-section (4) of section 41. The argument was that even if the case fell under sub-section (5) of section 41 the undertaking by the company mentioned in the agreement that the work of construction was of building or buildings required for the expansion of the factory was sufficient compliance with the requirement of that sub-section. It was said that it would be enough if the construction work was likely to prove useful to the public and the use need not be physical use. The public need not actually use the work nor need it have the right to use it. It would suffice if the public derived some benefit in consequence of the construction of the work envisaged by section 41(5). It was further said that it did not matter if one of the conditions or requirements of section 41 was left out of the agreement. That would not have the effect of rendering the acquisition invalid in law. In support of the argument that incorporation in the agreement with the company of the terms on which the public was to be entitled to use the work was not absolutely necessary in a case of the nature before us the learned Advocate General relied on the following observations of Mehrotra J. in R. L. Aurora v. State of Utter Pradesh A.I.R. (1958) All. 126 136 :