NAND LAL Vs. THE ESTATE OFFICER AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE five petitions, Mukand Lal v. State of Punjab Lakhi Ram v. State of Punjab Bawa Bhagat Singh v. State of Punjab Teja Singh v. State of Punjab and Nand Lal v. The Estate Officer numbered as Civil Writs Nos. 1075, 1076, 1085 and 1806 of 1964 and 459 of 1965, respectively, which are being disposed of by this judgment all raise the common question of law about the true construction and validity of Sub -section (2) of Section 12 of the Punjab New Capital (Periphery) Control Act. 1952, Punjab Act No. 1 of 1953 (hereinafter called the Act). The facts in these petitions which have been referred to the Division Bench by Narula J., are more or less identical and a common argument in these cases has been addressed by Mr. Rajinder Sachar. For the sake of convenience, it would be necessary to set out the facts only in Nand Lal's case which is Civil Writ No. 459 of 1965. It may be mentioned that Ajit Singh v. State of Punjab, Civil Writ No. 1799 of 1963, in which a separate judgment is being recorded, has also been heard along with these cases for the reason that it involves construction of Sub -section (2) of Section 12 of the Talwara Township (Periphery) Control Act, 1961, Punjab Act No 34 of 1961, which is verbatim the same as similarly numbered provision of the Act.

(2.) NAND Lal, Petitioner, purchased in 1960, a plot of land comprised in Khasra No. 320 in village Pinjore at a distance of about 8 miles from the periphery of Chandigarh, the Capital of the State of Punjab. It is claimed by him that the construction of a house on this plot which was started in June, 1962, was completed by the end of July, 1962. A notice was received by the Petitioner from the Estate Officer, Capital Project, on 11th of November, 1963, calling upon him to "demolish the house and put the land into its previous condition" in default of which the Estate Officer himself would have this job done and the Petitioner would be liable for the expenses of demolition. It would be necessary for a proper understanding of the objections to the validity of this notice (Annexure A -l) as also of the reply and the subsequent correspondence to set out the relevant provisions of the Act. Under Sub -section (2) of Section 1, the provisions of the Act extend to the area "adjacent to and within a distance of ten miles on all sides from the outer boundary of the land acquired for the capital of the State at Chandigarh." Before the amendment introduced by Punjab Act No. 28 of 1962, the boundary was fixed at five miles. Under Sub -section (1) of Section 3:

(3.) BEFORE such a declaration is made under Sub -section (1) of Section 3, the State Government is enjoined to have it published in the Official Gazette and two newspapers at least three months before it proposes to make such a declaration. Section 4 deals with publication of plans of the controlled area and according to Sub -section (1):