KALICHARAN Vs. STATE OF U.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) FIRST writ petition, being Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 22207 of 2011, was directed to be connected with Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 5236 of 2010 (Rajendra and others Vs. State of U.P. and others) by an order of the Division Bench of this Court dated 18th April, 2011, whereas other writ petitions have been connected with Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 22207 of 2011. Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 5236 of 2010 along with many other matters has already been decided by this Division Bench by judgement and order dated 19th August, 2011, which is reported in, 2011 (10) ADJ 323 (DB) (Rajendra and others Vs. State of U.P. and others). Accordingly, all the aforesaid writ petitions being connected with each other have been placed before this Court for the purpose of analogous hearing. The contentions of the respective contesting parties before us are that the disputes involved in these matters relate to same village i.e. Shahpur Bamhetta, which was also involved in the bunch decided by Rajendra and others (supra). The dispute resolved by this Court in Rajendra and others (supra) was in respect of Hi -Tech Township, whereas in the present cases the dispute is in respect of Integrated Township. Schemes of both the aforesaid townships are more or less similar with each other. The basic difference in these two bunch of cases, i.e. Rajendra and others (supra) and the present one, is that in the earlier one the land was acquired without giving any opportunity under Section 5 -A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (in short called as the 'Act'), whereas in the present bunch the requirement of Section 5 -A has been complied with on the part of the respondents. Petitioners' main contention is that in the earlier cases the land acquired was agricultural land but in the present cases it is abadi land. No order under Section 5 -A of the Act was served upon the petitioners. The petitioners have relied upon the judgement reported in : 2005 (7) SCC 627 (Hindustan Petroleum Corpn. Ltd. Vs. Darius Shapur Chenai and others), as was made in the earlier referred case, and contended that Section 5 -A of the Act confers a valuable and important right in favour of a person, whose lands are sought to be acquired which is akin to fundamental right. The State in exercise of its power of "eminent domain" may interfere with the right of property of a person by acquiring the same but the same must be for a public purpose and reasonable compensation therefor must be paid. We find that so far as abadi land is concerned, the Supreme Court in its recent judgement reported in JT, 2011 (4) SC 524 [Sri Radhy Shyam (Dead) through L.Rs. and others Vs. State of U.P. and others] held that in case of acquisition of abadi (residential) property of the appellant if no opportunity is given for hearing, the acquisition will be unsustainable in law. However, in the present cases we find that the interest of the petitioners is more for compensation than the need of keeping the land.

(2.) IN any event, to avoid any complication on the issue with regard to giving opportunity of hearing and not giving opportunity of hearing, like the matter referred above in re: Rajendra and others (supra), we pass the similar order as contained in paragraph -89 of such judgement, which is as under: