CHAMPA DEVI Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) R. S. Dhavan, V. P. Goel, JJ. This case relates to the City of Varanasi. The action impugned by the petitioners is land acquisition proceedings under the Land Ac quisition Act, 1894. The purpose of land acquisition was that certain roads in Varanasi had been earmarked for road-widening. The petitioner itself records that whereas the widening of the road so earmarked, the width of the road has been fixed as 60 feet, but it was proposed to widen them with a width of 100 feet. To carry out this purpose, land acquisition proceedings were set in motion with the issue of notifications under Section 4, 6 and 17 but by excluding Section 5-A.

(2.) THE main submissions of the petitioners is of two fold. Firstly, there was no private negotiations before going into the question of acquiring the land of the petitioners for the purpose of widening the public roads. Secondly, the road widening could have been diverted to the opposite direction, but this was not done as one Sri Y. P. Dubey was closely related to respon dent No. 3, the Secretary, Varanasi Development Authority. THE second aspect, the Court will not go into for the simple reason that for alleging mala fides, Sri Y. P. Dubey, referred to in the writ peti tion, should have been arrayed as a party respondent together with the person whom he was related to and posted as an officer with the Varanasi Development Authority.

(3.) THE contention of the petitioners to stall this public plan of road widening in a city like Varanasi, cannot be accepted. Any road which may not have been found wide enough for Varanasi in 1982, 14 years later, would need to be even wider today. Varanasi is in any case, is a city which during the day chokes with traffic. Every one likes to see easy flowing, for traffic moving on roads. But when the planning is actually put into execution, impediments like the present one are put before the planners. This writ petition alone has been responsible for keeping in abeyance the widening of roads in Varanasi for 14years.