NATHE SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE two notifications (Annexures P -1 and P -2) dated 2nd February, 1977, issued under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act (for short, the Act), respectively, are impugned primarily on the grounds -

(2.) AFTER hearing the Learned Counsel for the parties I find no merit in the stand taken by the Respondents.

(3.) SO far as the second contention of the Learned Counsel for the Petitioner is concerned, though the stand of the Respondent -authorities, as already indicated, is that the urgency provisions of Section 17 had been invoked after giving due consideration to the matter, yet the said case stands negatived by the irrefutable circumstance that for about 1 1/2 years, i.e., from the date of the publication of the notification in the gazette to the date of the filing of this petition, viz., 15th July, 1978, the authorities failed to take possession of the suit land or take any meaningful step towards the completion of the acquisition proceedings by making an award, etc. A Division Bench of this Court in Sh Mehtab Chand v. The State of Punjab, 1976 P.L.J. 104 has ruled that "where there is no evidence worth the name to show that the Government ever applied its mind to the question as to whether there was any urgency justifying abridgement of the normal procedure embodied in Section 5A and no attempt is made to take possession for a long time, both the things would unmistakably show that there was no urgency in fact and the provisions of Section 5A were dispensed with only as a colourable exercise of jurisdiction, and the notification in such a case should be held to be bad in law." The ratio of this judgment, to my mind, fully applies to the facts of this case.