AGYA RAM Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner seeks the quashing of notification dated July 17, 1980 (Annexure P. 7) issued under S. 48 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894(for short, the Act) and further a writ of mandamus to the land Acquisition Collector respondent No. 2 to complete the acquisition proceedings regarding petitioner's land detailed in para 2 of the petition and to announce the award as envisaged by S. 11 of the Act. This relief is claimed on the basis of the following facts: On Jan. 31, 1979, the State Government issued notification (Annexure P. 1) under Section 4 of the Act for the acquisition of land including that of the petitioner for the installation and energisation of 400 K. V. Dehar-Panipat line which admittedly was to pass over the land of the petitioner. This notification was followed by another notification dated March 21, 1979(Annexure P. 2) under Section 6 of the Act and few other steps towards the finalisation of the acquisition proceedings. It deserves to be mentioned here that prior to the issuance of the above-noted notifications the petitioner received certain communications from respondent No. 3 asking him that he should shift his brick-kiln run in the land in question as the Chimney of the same would directly fall under the abovesaid transmission line. Basing his cause of action on these letters the petitioner filed a suit for injunction in the Court of Sub Judge, Ist Class, Chandigarh, praying therein that the defendant (presently respondent No. 3) "should not demolish the brick-kiln " of the petitioner and during the trail of that suit Shri P. P. Maheshwari, Executive Engineer of respondent No. 3 made a statement before the Court on Dec. 22, 1978, that :we wanted the brick-kiln to be shifted but the same would not be done forcibly." In view of this statement on behalf of the defendant, the suit was with-drawn. At a later stage, after the energisation of the abovesaid line which was done on July 12, 1979, the respondent-authorities, as already indicated have withdrawn the abovenoted process of acquisition of t he land in question by issuing the impugned notification under S. 48 of the Act.

(2.) The case of the respondent-authorities in a nutshell is that they had never taken possession of the land of the petitioner nor have they shifted or asked for the shifting of t he brick-kiln subsequent to t he making of the statement by Shri Maheshwari before the Civil Court, they were well within their right to abandon the acquisition and issue the impugned notification under S. 48 of the Act. This section reads as follows: "48. Completion of acquisition not compulsory, but compensation to be awarded when not completed- (1) Except in the case provided for in Section 36, the government shall be at liberty to withdraw from the acquisition of any land of which possession has not been taken. (2) Whenever the Government withdraws from any such acquisition, the Collector shall determine the amount of compensation due for the damage suffered by the owner in consequence of t he notice or of any proceedings thereunder, and shall pay such amount to the person interested, together with all costs reasonably incurred by him in the prosecution of t he proceedings under this Act relating to the said land. (3) The provision of A Part III this Act shall apply, so far as may be, to the determination of t he compensation payable under this section." A bare reading of the abovenoted section makes it manifestly clear that it recognises the right of the Government to withdraw from the acquisition of any land provided (i) it had not taken possession, or (ii) the case is not one covered by S. 36. The petitioner has not made even a remote reference to any proceedings taken by the respondent-authorities under Ss. 35 and 36 of the Act. Rather it is fairly conceded that the said authorities had as a matter of fact never resorted to those proceedings. So the narrow question which needs to be determined is whether the possession to petitioner's land was taken by the respondent-authorities at any stage.

(3.) In support of his claim that the possession of petitioner's land was taken by the respondent-authorities subsequent to t he issuance of notifications under Ss. 4 and 6(provisions of S. 17 too are invoked in the latter notification), learned counsel for the petitioner refers to the following material on record : "(i) In reply to t he claim filed by the petitioner under Section 9 of the Act, it has been stated on behalf of the respondent-Board "the line was electrically charged on 12-7-1979". (ii) In para 113 of the written statement filed by the Board, it has been admitted that the stringing of the said transmission line between TL No. 347 was done during the period Nov. / Dec., 1978." Besides this, the learned counsel also refers to some correspondence exchanged between the Board Authorities and the Land Acquisition Collector wherein the former has been asking the latter to deliver possession of the land concerned.