BHAGWAT DAYAL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BHAGWAT Dayal and four others were owners of a garden known as Mubarak Bagh which is situated in village Malakpur Chhowni Delhi. Its area is 215 Bighas and 5 Biswas. The Chief commissioner, Delhi acquired this area by issuing a notification under Section 6 of the Land acquisition Act (hereafter called the Act) on 14th October, 1955. Thereafter proceedings under the Act were taken and the Land Acquisition Collector on 23rd February, 1957 made his award under Section 11 of the Act. The erstwhile owners filed a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution challenging the validity of the Notification issued under Section 6 of the Act! and also challenging the validity of the award. This petition was dismissed by Falshaw J. on 18th December, 1957 and the present appeal under Clause 10 of the Letters Patent lias been filed against this decision.

(2.) THE appellants' case is this. They purchased the land now in dispute in 1944-45 for Rs. 2,75,000/- for the purposes of developing it. Since 1950 they have been trying to get the scheme for developing the area sanctioned. For this purpose they engaged the services of an architect who prepared a scheme for developing the area by converting the garden into building sites. On 20th August, 1953 the appellants submitted this scheme to the Delhi Improvement Trust for sanction. The Trust laid down certain conditions before sanctioning the scheme and the conditions were accepted by the appellants on 8th September, 1954. While this scheme was still under consideration of the Delhi Improvement Trust, a notification under Section 4 of the Act was issued on 23rd June, 1955 and notification under Section 6 of the Act was issued on 14th october, 1955. Shri Murari Singh then took proceedings as a Land Acquisition Collector and gave his award on 23rd February, 1957 while the notification appointing him Land Acquisition collector was not issued till 30th March, 1957 though with retrospective effect. The Notification under Section 6 of the Act reads : --

(3.) I have reproduced above the Notification under Section 6 of the Act from the copy of the notification filed with the writ petition. There is, however an obvious typing mistake in this copy inasmuch as the words "at the expense of the Dera Ismail Khan Co-operative House building Society, Limited" do not occur therein. This mistake is clear from the fact that these words occur in the Notification under Section 4 of the Act and the petitioners in para 13 (b) have challenged the validity of this Notification on the ground that the compensation is to be paid from the funds of the society which is a private institution and not from, public funds. It may, therefore, be taken that there is a specific mention in the Notification under Section 6 of the Act that the compensation shall be payable from the funds of the Dera Ismail Khan Cooperative house Building Society, Limited and I shall deal with the points raised in this case on this basis.