SADASHIV DURGAJI AMBHORE Vs. STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE 12 petitioners have come forward to challenge the notifications issued by the Competent Authority under Sub -section(l) of Section 10 as well as Sub -section (3) of Section 10 of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 (hereinafter referred to as 'the U.L.C. Act'), Similarly the petitioners claim that a notification issued under Section 4 on 18.5.1989 and notification issued under Section 6 on 24.8.1989, both under the Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the L.A. Act' ) be quashed and set aside.

(2.) THE petitioners, who are residents of Shiwangaon, Tahsil and District Nagpur, are the owners of agricultural lands, the details of which are to be found in the Schedule filed by the respondent No. 2. The said Schedule is accepted to be correct on behalf of the petitioners. The Schedule provides even other details which will be referred to at appropriate places. The petitioners allege that they are dependent on the income derived from those lands. The Competent Authority issued notifications under Sub -section (1) of Section 10 of the U.L.C. Act giving particulars of vacant land held by each of the petitioners in excess of the ceiling limit and stating therein that such vacant land is to be acquired by the State Government. Mostly the notifications are of the year 1981 except two, one of which was published in the year 1982 and the other in the year 1988. The petitioners then contend that they learnt about the publication of second notification under Sub -section (3) of the said section only when the Competent Authority issued notices to the petitioners for determination of the amount of compensation under Sub -section (7) of Section 11 of the U.L.C. Act. According to the petitioners either of the notifications are bad in law, illegal and liable to be quashed. Two grounds are urged on behalf of the petitioners for challenging these notifications. The first relates to the inordinate delay in processing their Urban Land Ceiling cases. After publication of the notification under Sub -section (1) of Section 10, it took eight to nine years before publication of the notification under Sub -section (3) of that very section under the U.L.C. Act. This delay is enough to quash the impugned notifications. The second ground urged was that the notification under Sub -section (3) of Section 10 was liable to be quashed for non -application of mind by the concerned authorities in publishing those notifications without specifying the date on which the surplus land came to be vested in the State Government. As a matter of fact the space meant for date is left blank in each of the notifications. Both these grounds will be dealt with one by one.

(3.) IT appears from the return filed on behalf of the respondent No. 2 as well as from the Schedule that third party or parties were given opportunity to file their objections as contemplated by Sub -section (2) of Section 10 of the U.L.C. Act and thereafter the State Government published the notifications under Sub -section (3) of that section in the Gazette of 21st September 1989. It is by that notification that the excess lands owned by the petitioners came to be vested in the State Government. Undoubtedly these notifications are published after the lapse of eight or nine years from the date the final statement of the vacant land came to be published, but this delay cannot vitiate the impugned notifications for more than one reason.