LUXMICHAND Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A. N. Varma, J. The petitioners are the tenure-holders of certain agricultural plots of land in respect of which the State Government on 11th of October, 1978 issued a Notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act. The Notification under S. 6 of the Land Acquisition Act was published on 11th of November, 1978. The petitioners challenged the validity of these Notifications on two grounds. The first submission was that the case was not one of urgency and the State Government had no jurisdiction to exclude the provisions of S. 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act so as to exclude objections by the tenure holders. The second ground is that the acquisition was bad for non-compliance of second proviso to S. 6 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act. In the Notification issued under Section 4, it was stated that since the case was of urgency, the provisions of S. 5-A are excluded. The purpose of acquisition was stated to be for construction of a godown for the Central Warehousing Corporation at Pilkhani, district Saharanpur. Learned counsel stresses that the recommendation by the District Magistrate for acquisition of land for the Corporation was made somewhere on 9th of Feb. , 1978. The Notification in question was issued on 11th of October, 1978. This itself shows that there was no urgency in the matter because the authorities themselves took nearly eight months to issue the Notification under Section 4. Reliance in this connection has been placed upon Smt. Manohari Devi Balwal v. State of U. P. reported in 1979 All CJ 163. In that case also the District officer made his report in March, 1978 while the Notification was issued on 17th of Aug. , 1978. It was held that the delay of five months itself shows that there was really no urgency in the matter. It was however, observed : "it may be that if necessary facts are brought on record a delay of even five months may be held to be not undue but in the absence of relevant facts the circumstances that delay normally takes place in the Government Departments cannot by itself constitute sufficient ground to justify abrogation of the valuable right of the petitioner to file objection against the proposed acquisition of their land. "

(2.) THE factual situation in that case was that the relevant facts to explain the time consumed in issuing the notifications were not brought on the record of the case before the Court. In the next place, the purpose of acquisition was to establish an Industrial Estate, which normally takes a long time to accomplish. On these facts, the Bench relied upon a Supreme Court decision reported in AIR 1977 SC 183, in which it was emphasised that the question of urgency will partly depend upon the inherent nature of the acquisition and in the next place on the nature of urgency that is, whether the urgency is of such a nature that even the summary proceedings under Section 5-A should be dispensed with. It was incumbent upon the authorities to place the relevant facts before the Court to satisfy it, showing that it was such a case of such urgency.

(3.) FOR the petitioners reliance was also placed on another decision of this Court in the case of Dr. Nanak Chand Chaturvedi v. State of U. P. reported in 1979 All CJ 105, in which the same view as in the case of Smt. Manohari Devi Balwal (supra) was expressed and on the facts of that case it was held that as the delay between the decision to dispense with the requirements of S. 5-A and the actual publication of Notifications under Sections 4 and 6 had not been explained by the Government, it cannot be said that there existed any real and genuine urgency entitling the Government to dispense with the requirement of S. 5-A.