CHARAN SINGH Vs. STATE OF M P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant has filed this Letters Patent Appeal under Clause x of the Letters Patent against the order dated 1-7-2002 passed by the learned single Judge in Charan Singh and others Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh and others (W. P. No. 2986/2002 ).

(2.) THE brief resume of facts required to be stated for the disposal of this Letters Patent Appeal may be narrated :-Through Writ Petition No. 398/97 the appellants challenged the land acquisition proceedings on various grounds. But, at the time of hearing of the aforesaid writ petition, the appellants sought direction to the State Government to dispose of representation dated 26-9-2000 submitted by the appellants to the State government. By said representation, they prayed for withdrawal of acquisition of land and denotification of the same under section 48 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The learned single Judge, vide order dated October 10, 2000 allowed the prayer and directed the State Government to decide the representation within specified time and extended it vide M. C. C. No. 726/2001. The Principal Secretary Revenue decided the representation and rejected the prayer of the appellants to de-notify the land in question vide order dated 29-4-2002 (Annexure P-18 ).

(3.) THE aforesaid order was challenged by present appellants by writ Petition No. 2986/2002. Before the learned Single Judge it was submitted that the acquisition itself is bad in law since the award has been passed after a period of two years. Thus, in view of Section 11-A, the entire proceeding for the acquisition of land stand lapsed. It was also urged that the notification issued under Section 4 of the Act is vague. The learned Single Judge decided against the appellants holding that the finding of fact, as to award having been passed within two years from the date of publication of the declaration, can not be interfered with and the purpose mentioned in the notification can not be termed to be vague. It has also been held that the said grounds are not available to the appellants more particularly after lapse of about ten years of passing of the award and it is not open at this stage to challenge the notification under Section 4 and declaration under Section 6 of the Act. It has also been held by the learned Single Judge that both these grounds are not available to the appellants for the simple reason that in the earlier petition the appellants confined their prayer to representation being decided. The learned Single judge accordingly, dismissed the petition.