PATEL GANDALAL SOMNATH Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case once again raises the much debated question as to when an inquiry by a statutory body can be said to be a quasi-judicial inquiry as opposed to an administrative inquiry. The question arises in regard to an inquiry under section 5A of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 and surprisingly enough barring a decision of the High Court of Allahabad there is no authority in which the question appears to have been considered. The decision of the High Court of Allahabad treats the inquiry as a quasi-judicial inquiry but there is hardly any discussion of the reasons leading upto the conclusion and the conclusion seems to rest merely upon the ipse dixit of the Court. With respect we do not agree with the decision of the High Court of Allahabad and take the view that the inquiry is an administrative inquiry and not a quasi-judicial inquiry; but inasmuch as the question is one of considerable importance and consequence and since we have had the advantage of hearing very able arguments on both sides we think it right to give our reasons in some detail.

(2.) It is necessary to set out briefly the facts giving rise to the present litigation in order to appreciate the contentions which have been urged before us. The first petitioner is the owner of P. P. No. 61 in Ellis Bridge Town Planning Scheme No. 3 Osmanpura Ahmedabad. The first petitioner has four sons and two daughters. The first petitioner wanted to construct four bungalows three for his sons and one for himself and he therefore sub-divided this plot into ten sub-plots so that he could sell off six sub-plots and from the sale proceeds find monies for the construction of bungalows on the remaining four sub-plots. The first petitioner submitted a plan showing the lay out of various sub-plots to the Municipal Corporation of Ahmedabad and the same was sanctioned by the Municipal Corporation of Ahmedabad on 29th October 1959 The first petitioner also obtained permission of the City Deputy Collector Ahmedabad for non-agricultural use of the entire plot. This permission was granted by the City Deputy Collector Ahmedabad on 6th October 1959. The first petitioner thereafter sold sub-plots Nos. 1 and 2 to the second petitioner by a deed of sale dated 29tb December 1959. Sub-plot No. 3 was sold by the first petitioner to the third petitioner by a deed of sale dated 20th February 1960 and sub-plot No. 9 was also sold by the first petitioner to the fourth and fifth petitioners jointly by a deed of sale executed on the same day. The first petitioner also negotiated for sale of sub-plot No. 4 with one Himatlal Ganpatram and the negotiations were finalised; but before the sale could be completed Himatlal Ganpatram died in a motor accident and the completion of the sale was therefore delayed. The sixth petitioner also agreed to purchase sub-plot No. 5 from the first petitioner for the purpose of constructing a bungalow thereon but before the sale could be completed the Government of Gujarat issued the notification challenged in the present proceedings. This notification was issued by the Government of Gujarat on 14th September 1960 under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 and it was stated in this notification that whereas it appeared to the Government of Gujarat that P. P. No. 61 was likely to be needed for the construction of houses for the third respondent-Society it was notified under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 that this plot was likely to be needed for the said purpose namely construction of houses for the third respondent-Society. Pubic notice of the substance of this notification was given at convenient places in the locality and individual notices were also given to the petitioners intimating to them that if they had any objections to the acquisition of P. P. No. 61 they should communicate the same in writing to the second respondent. The petitioners accordingly filed their objections pointing out that they themselves wished to construct residential houses on various sub-plots comprised in P. P. No. 61 and that the land sought to be acquired was not at all required for the existing members of the third respondent-Society. The third respondent Society was registered as a Co-operative Housing Society on 15th February 1956 with seventeen members and immediately after its registration the third respondent-Society purchased P. P. No. 62 adjoining P. P. No.61 belonging to the petitioners and constructed on the said plot seventeen bungalows for its original seventeen members. The third respondent-Society did not therefore require any more land for its original seventeen members. The third respondent-Society however alleged that in addition to the original seventeen members for whom bungalows had been constructed on F.P. No. 62 the third respondent-Society had enrolled ten other members for whom the third respondent-Society required F.P.No.61. The third respondent - Society accordingly resolved at the meeting of the Managing Committee held on 6th September 1959 to apply to the Government for the acquisition of F.P.No. 61 and an application was accordingly made by the third respondent-Society to the Government on 12th September 1959. The additional ten members enrolled by the third respondent-Society did not have so alleged the third respondent-Society any residential houses in the City of Ahmedabad or the Ahmedabad District and P. P. No. 61 was therefore required by the third respondent-Society for construction of houses for the additional ten members. The petitioners however challenged the requirement of the third respondent-Society and contended that the acquisition was mala fide and was calculated to enable a group of ten individual persons to obtain at a nominal price various sub-plots comprised in P. P. No. 61 which were required by the petitioners for construction of their own residential bungalows. The petitioners objected to the acquisition on the ground that the purpose for which the acquisition was sought to be made was not a public purpose and that the land comprised in P. P. No. 61 could not therefore be acquired by the Government. The petitioners also raised various other objections to the acquisition of the land comprised in P. P. No. 61. We are not concerned in this case with the actual objections made by the petitioners but suffice it to state that objections were made by the petitioners to the acquisition of the land comprised in F. P. No. 61 on various grounds available to the petitioners. On the objections being received from the petitioners the second respondent held an inquiry under sec. 5A of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 for the purpose of hearing such objections. In the course of the inquiry the first petitioner made an application to the second respondent on 19th November 1960 demanding various particulars from the third respondent-Society such as the constitution of the third respondent-Society the names and addresses of the original members of the third respondent-Society and the names and addresses of the new members alleged to have been admitted by the third respondent-Society along with the respective dates of their enrollment and their relations with the original members of the third respondent - Society. The first petitioner also claimed an opportunity to cross-examine the additional members of the third respondent-Society for whom the land comprised in P. P. No. 61 was sought to be acquired. The second respondent in consequence of the application directed the third respondent-Society to supply to the first petitioner the constitution of the third respondent - Society as also the names of the original as well as new members of the third respondent-Society. The second respondent however did not pass any specific orders as regards the other reliefs claimed by the first petitioner. The first petitioner therefore once again moved the second respondent by a more specific application dated 24th January 1961. The first petitioner pointed out in this application that the inquiry which was being held by the second respondent under sec. 5A of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 was a judicial and in any event a quasi-judicial inquiry and that the various objections raised by the petitioners were required to be decided in a judicial manner and that the petitioners were therefore entitled to cross-examine the members of the third respondent-Society for whose benefit or at whose instance the land comprised in P. P. No. 61 was proposed to be acquired for the purpose of testing the bona fides of the proposed acquisition. The first petitioner also stated in this application that the petitioners wanted to know whether the new members of the third respondent-Society had residential houses in Ahmedabad District either in their own names or in their fathers name or in the names of any of their family members and that this information was necessary for the purpose of the inquiry which was being held by the second respondent. The second respondent rejected this application by an order dated 24th January 1961 on the view that the inquiry before him was a limited one and that the petitioners were not entitled to have the members of the third respondent - Society presented for cross-examination. The second respondent also refused to call for the further particulars demanded by the petitioners from the third respondent-Society. Curiously enough though the order was made by the second respondent on 24th January 1961 rejecting this application the third respondent-Society was allowed to file its objections to this application on 9th February 1961.

(3.) The petitioners thereupon filed the present petition challenging the validity of the notification and the inquiry on various grounds set out in the petition. They need not be set out here in detail. We shall be referring to them when we examine the arguments urged on behalf of the petitioners and we shall do so in the order in which they were presented and with necessary factual details. Suffice it to state for the present that the main controversy between the parties centered round the question whether the inquiry was a quasi-judicial inquiry or an administrative inquiry and a major part of the argument advanced before us turned on this question. Apart from the contentions bearing on this question two other contentions were urged on behalf of the petitioners. One contention was that the object of the proposed acquisition was not a public purpose and that even if the proposed acquisition was sought to be made for the third respondent-Society simpliciter the requirements of Part VII of the Act were not satisfied and that the government was therefore not entitled to acquire the land comprised in P. P. No. 61. The other contention though argued faintly was that the proposed acquisition was mala fide and was calculated to benefit the ten additional members of the third respondent-Society by enabling them to acquire at the ridiculously low prices prevailing on 1st January 1948 the land comprised in P. P. No. 61 even though the same was required by the petitioners for construction of their own residential bungalows and was therefore bad. These two latter contentions were however in our opinion for reasons which we shall presently give premature and we did not therefore permit Mr. I. M. Nanavati learned advocate appearing on behalf of the petitioners to advance any arguments in support of these contentions. We shall now proceed to examine the validity of the various contentions urged on behalf of the petitioners in support of the petition. Before however we do so it is necessary to set out at this stage the relevant sections of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 and the relevant rules made by the Government of Bombay under sec. 55 of the said Act. The following are the relevant sections of the said Act which have a bearing on the determination of the question raised before us :- -