UGAR SAIN Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order will dispose of Civil Writ Petition No. 5205 of 1974 Ugar Singh v. The State of Punjab and others and Civil Writ Petition No. 5206 of 1974 Hindu Undivided Family Lala Dhani Ram Mehra and Sons v. The State of Punjab and others as identical questions of fact and law arise in both the writ petitions and the same notifications have been impugned. For facility of reference, relevant facts in Civil Writ Petition No. 5205 of 1974, will be referred to.

(2.) THE petitioner is an occupier of a portion of the premises bearing Municipal No. 2575/II -37 and 1504/II -37 (the premises in dispute) belonging to M/s. Ram Lal Ganpat Rai, where he is doing manufacturing business. On June 26, 1962, the Punjab Government, respondent No. 1, declared the entire area within the walled city of Amritsar to be damaged area by a notification under section 2(d) of the Punjab Development of the Damaged Areas Act (X of 1951) (hereinafter to be called the Act). The premises, in dispute, are covered by the said notification. The Amritsar Town Improvement Trust, respondent No. 2, (hereinafter called the Trust), framed a development scheme under section 3 of the Act for the development of the area inside Ghee Mandi situated in the walled city of Amritsar. This scheme was published under section 4 of the Act, but no notice of the same was issued to the petitioner. Under sub -section (3) of section 5 of the Act, the Government of Punjab sanctioned the said scheme for acquisition part only by a notification published in the Punjab Government Gazette dated June 3, 1968, (Annexure P. 1). Thereafter, the Trust sent an application under section 6(1) of the Act to the Land Acquisition Collector for acquisition of some area referred to in the notification (Annexure P.1) for immediate delivery of the possession thereof. On this, the Land Acquisition Collector vide his order dated March 13, 1969, (Annexure P.2), accepted the application of the Trust and ordered delivery of the possession. Regarding the remaining properties which were not included in the application by the Trust, the Land Acquisition Collector ordered as under : -

(3.) FROM the above, it is evident that the scheme as framed by the Trust and submitted to the Government has to be sanctioned under sub -section (3) of section 5 as a whole after taking into consideration the objections which may have been filed by the persons likely to be affected. In the present case, the impugned scheme was published in the Government Gazette on June 3, 1968, vide notification (Annexure P.1). Its perusal shows that the scheme was sanctioned under sub -section (3) of section 5 "for acquisition part only". According to the learned counsel for the petitioners, the State Government had no jurisdiction to sanction the scheme in part as has been done in this case. Reliance has been placed in this behalf on a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Arjan Singh v. State of Punjab and others, 1977 P.L.J. 323, in which a scheme had been framed under the Punjab Town Improvement Act (hereinafter called the Improvement Act) and sanction had been accorded by the Government under section 42(2) of the Improvement Act. I was also a party to the said judgment. The various provisions of the said Act regarding the framing of the scheme, inviting of the objections and the final sanction by the State Government, are analogous to the provisions of the Act. In that case also, the impugned notification had been issued by the State Government thereby sanctioning the acquisition part only. It was held that the Government had no jurisdiction to sanction only the acquisition part under section 41(1) of the Improvement Act, but after perusing the notification issued by the Government and taking into consideration all other circumstances of the case, we came to the conclusion that the scheme had been sanctioned wholly and not only for acquisition part. This decision was relied upon by both the sides. According to the learned counsel for the respondents, the working of the impugned notification in the present case, is absolutely identical to the language used in the notification issued in the said case and, therefore, the impugned notification in the present case, should also be held valid and interpreted as if the scheme had been sanctioned wholly and not partly. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the petitioners, relied upon the document annexed by the respondent Trust to the reply (R.5). This notification was also issued under sub -section (3) of section 5 of the Act and published on January 8, 1971, that is, about three years after the publication of the notification (Annexure P.1) according to which the same scheme relating to the same property was sanctioned by the Government to the extent of "acquisition part only". The argument is that if the two notifications (Annexures P.1 and R.5) are read together, it becomes absolutely clear that the previous notification decidedly had a reference to the sanction of the scheme only for the purpose of acquisition and not as a whole because if by notification (Annexure P.1), the scheme had been sanctioned as a whole, the question of issuing second notification (R.5) could not arise. There is considerable weight in this contention. Thus, it has to be held that by the impugned notification, (Annexure P.1), the State Government sanctioned the scheme submitted by the Trust only partly. This was not permissible to the State Government in view of the ratio of the decision in Arjan Singh's case (supra).