CHAMEL SINGH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (Oral)- The petitioners, who belong to villages Gobindpura, Garhi Mundo and Jagadhri, impugn the notifications under sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short, the Act), dated August 20, 1980 and July 13, 1982, respectively, issued by the State Government for the acquisition of 823.17 acres of land including that of the petitioners on the following three grounds :-

(2.) To sustain his first contention, the learned counsel for the petitioners highlights that the respondent authorities had earlier issued two similar notifications under section 4 of the Act on November 28, 1969 and June 1, 1974 (Annexures P.2 and P.4 respectively), but allowed those notifications to lapse by efflux of time. It is also maintained by him that the real purpose of issuing the presently impugned notification Annexure P-7, is to virtually keep the price of the acquired land pegged down to the rate prevalent in the year 1969. If the authorities are allowed to acquire this land then what is going to be paid to the petitioners by way of compensation would be equivalent to the price of this land in the year 1969. The stand of the respondent authorities in this regard, however, is that the earlier two notifications were allowed to lapse as those suffered from technical defects inasmuch as the substance of those notifications had not been published in the localities concerned simultaneously or immediately after the publication of the same in the official gazette. It is also contended by their learned counsel that as a matter of fact the issuance of repeated notifications by the State Government shows the anxiety of the authorities is to acquire this land.

(3.) In order to accept the stand of the petitioners what deserves to be seen is as to whether the presently impugned notifications can be said to have been issued with an ulterior purpose of acquiring the land at some future date at a price which was prevalent earlier to the issuance of these notifications or are there any circumstances to indicate that the said authorities as a matter of fact did not need this land for the public purpose which has been notified as "developing and utilizing the area for residential, commercial and industrial purpose". As already pointed out, the two impugned notifications were issued on August 20, 1980 and July 7, 1982 and before the acquisition proceedings could be completed with the making of an award under section 11 of the Act, the present petition was filed on August 30, 1982. It is explained by the authorities that during the interval between the issuance of the two impugned notifications, they had to deal with and dispose of the objections filed under section 5-A of the Act by hundreds of persons whose land was likely to be acquired. In view of the large number of objections filed by the landowners, the period of a little more than two years spent by the authorities cannot be held to be excessive or unjustified. After section 6 notification, the authorities, in order to complete the process of acquisition issued notices under section 9 of the Act to the landowners concerned and before anything could materialize in this regard this Court vide its order dated September 3, 1982 stayed the pronouncement of the award. It is an account of this order as per the stand of the authorities that they could not complete the acquisition till today. It is thus apparent from the above narration of facts that the authorities concerned cannot be accused of dilatory tactics in the completion of the acquisition proceedings carried on in pursuance of these notifications. In view of that merely that earlier notifications issued under section 4 were allowed to lapse twice cannot by itself make the presently impugned notifications infirm or defective. The delay on account of the lapsing of those two notifications could only be taken into consideration if the authorities could be held guilty of either delaying or non-seriousness in completing the acquisition proceedings in pursuance of these two notifications. In support of his stand, the learned counsel for the petitioners makes a reference to a Division Bench decision of this Court in Om Parkash v. State of Haryana and others, 1984 PunLJ 1 In the given facts and circumstances of that case the impugned notification was held to be mala fide. Further, the learned Judges of the Bench were also not satisfied about the delay which the authorities concerned had caused in the issuance of section 6 notification subsequent to the section 4 notification. All this is so much clear from the following concluding observations made in that judgment :-