BISWAMITRA SHUKLA Vs. L A COLLECTOR BURDWAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two rules are taken up together for the sake of convenience as they involve substantially the common question of fact and law relating to certain acquisition proceedings adopted by the respondents for acquisition of parts of two plots of lands belonging to petitioners.

(2.) SHORTLY put, the facts as pleaded are that the petitioners are the owners of two plots of land being c. s. plots Nos. 354 and 355 within the Municipality of asansol. The respondent No. 4 who is a very influential man in the locality and a member of the Paliament has his residential house at Young Road which is situated just on the opposite side of the petitioners' said lands. He tried to persuade the petitioners in many ways to sell the said lands to him. One G. S. Atwal a deceased brother of respondent No. 4 tried to occupy one of the said plots by force and on a complaint on behalf of the predecessors of the petitioners and some of the present petitioners a proceeding under section 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was started being Misc. Case No. 2 of 1948 and the petitioners ultimately were held to be the persons entitled to remain in possession of the said plot. Having thus failed in his repeated attempts to get the said land from the petitioners or their predecessors, the respondent No. 4 successfully persuaded the respondent No. 2, the then Administrator of the Municipality, to acquire these lands for his benefit and at his own expense under the cloak of land acquisition proceeding on the pretext of creating a Park and he had already paid Rs. 39,000/ - to the Municipality for the purpose of payment of compensations. These plots, it is stated are situated on the extreme southern side of the area of the Municipality of asansol and at some distance to the north of these plots which is outside the jurisdiction of the Municipality is Budha village which is inhabited mainly by farmers who cannot have any necessity of a Park. This apart, locality itself is very thinly populated and vast areas of land are lying vacant which only indicate that there cannot be any necessity of converting such area into a park at such a huge cost. The entire proceeding for acquisition, it is stated, is malafide.

(3.) IT is also stated that the respondents wanted to acquire only a portion of the said two plots and the total area of the land in the notification under section 4 was not properly given and thereafter this notification was amended by inclusion of larger area and publication simultaneously with the declaration under section 6 was bad. There was no publication of substance of notification under section 4 and thus the petitioners were deprived of filing an objection under section 5a and they were also not given any hearing. The award again, was given in joint names. In substance, the acquisition proceedings were adopted without compliance with the mandatory provisions of the land Acquisition Act. The petitioners thus felt aggrieved by the acquisition proceedings and came up to this Court and successively obtained the above two rules.