SARFARAZ HUSAIN Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A notification purporting to be u/S. 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) was issued on 4/05/1982 and was published in the U. P. Gazette on 25th Sept. 1982. By this notification a number of agricultural plots including plot No. 351 (area 1.53 acres) situated in village Sonakpur, tehsil and district Moradabad were sought to be acquired for the Moradabad Development Authority. The validity of the said notification is being impugned in the present petition by the petitioners who allege themselves to be the owners of plot No. 351.

(2.) Shri R. H. Zaidi has advanced the following submissions in support of this petition : (1) No publication of the notification u/S.4 took place in the locality, (2) the notice issued u/S.4 was not served upon the petitioners in conformity with S.45 of the Act and (3) the publication in the locality having not taken place within 21 days from the date of publication of the notification in the official gazette, the entire proceedings fell through. We shall deal with these contentions in seriatim.

(3.) . Re.1. In paragraph 16 of the writ petition, which has been sworn on personal knowledge by a pairokar on behalf of the petitioners, the averment is that according to the further information gathered by the petitioners, the Collector, Moradabad never caused public notice of the notification dated 4/05/1982 or the substance thereof to be given/ affixed at any convenient place or any other place in the concerned locality. This averment has been controverted in para 9 of the counter affidavit filed by one Shri Anil Kumar Sachan, a Junior Engineer in the Moradabad Development Authority. The averments are these. The substance of the notification u/S.4 of the Act was published on the spot and at the police station and the tehsil. There was wide publicity about the acquisition proceedings and the petitioners and other tenure holders, whose land had been acquired, very well knew about the land acquisition proceedings. Wide publicity of the acquisition of the plot in dispute and other plots was made in the locality. The Naib Tehsildar got publicity made through Vinod Swarup, peon and on Ist December, 1982 Vinod Swarup, peon had submitted a report that the notice had been published on the notice board and also on the Neem tree in the village. A copy of the notice was pasted on the notice board of Tehsil and the police station. A true copy of the report submitted by Vinod Swarup has also been filed as Annexure 2 to the affidavit. On the material on record, we are satisfied that the publication in the locality had taken place. There is, therefore, no substance in this contention.