RISHI PAL Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order shall dispose of CWP No. 18931 and 19031 of 2009 as both the petitions are directed against notification dated 15.12.2006 issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for brevity 'the Act') and declaration dated 14.12.2007 made under Section 6 of the Act. Thereafter notices under Section 9 of the Act were issued in October/ November, 2009 The petitioner approached this Court with a prayer for quashing both the notifications dated 15.12.2006 and 14.12.2007. In para 5 of both the petitions, the petitioners have asserted that they had filed objections under Section 5 A of the Act. A copy of each of the objections dated 18.1.2007 has been placed on record. In both the cases the objections have been filed by using identical language. The objections filed under Section 5 A of the Act makes an interesting reading which reads thus: Our land is being acquired for Sectors 36 and 36A Rohtak. About it, we have already made objections earlier. Our land is very fertile. We have no other source of income. It has been acquired arbitrary without following rules and regulations etc. It may not be acquired.

(2.) IN para 3 of the preliminary objections of the written statement and in para 6 of the written statement on merits it has been categorically denied that the petitioners have ever filed any objections. The assertion of the official respondent nos. 1,3 and 4 in the written statement is that in the absence of filing of any objection under Section 5A of the Act, the petitioners cannot challenge the acquisition because it amounts to acquiescence.

(3.) IDENTICAL language of the objections filed by the petitioners in both the set of cases would show that it is an after thought and no objections infact were filed. We are fortified in our view because the language of the objections used is that objections were filed earlier also. If the objections were filed earlier a copy of the same would have been available with the petitioners and their counsel. The irresistible conclusion is that neither objections were filed earlier nor the objections as mentioned in para 5 of the petition were ever filed. In Talson Real Estate Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra (2007) 13 SC 186, the issue of non filing of objections and its effect on the acquisition was considered by Hon'ble the Supreme Court and it was held that once the land owner did not object to the acquisition by filing objections under Section 5 A of the Act then he cannot argue that enquiry made under Section 5 A of the Act was bad in the eyes of law and that consequential declaration made under Section 6 of the Act must be struck down. He also cannot contend that notification issued under Section 4 of the Act would lapse in the aforesaid circumsatances. Such being the position in law, the challenge of the petitioners to the notifications issued under Sections 4 and 6 of the Act is liable to be rejected on this short ground alone.