PATNA REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Vs. KANHAI RAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE questions involved in all the four appeals are the same and as such they have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common order.

(2.) C .W.J.C. No. 1443 of 1996 filed by respondent Kanhai Rai and 19 others, C.W.J.C. No. 2104 of 1996 filed by respondent Smt. Rameshwari Devi and C.W.J.C. No. 2586 of 1996 filed by respondent Krishna Murari Yadav and four others, out of which L.P.A. Nos. 902 of 1999, 903 of 1999 and 911 of 1999, respectively, arise, were disposed of by a common order dated 25.6.1999, by which the prayers made on behalf of the writ petitioner -respondents were allowed and a direction was issued restraining the appellant Patna Regional Development Authority (hereinafter referred to as 'the Authority ') and the Budha Sahkari Grih Nirman Sahyog Samiti (hereinafter referred to as the Society) from forcibly evicting the writ petitioners from their respective pieces of land. The writ petitioner -respondents were also directed to make applications before the Authority or the concerned Society and on such applications being made, the Authority and the Society would make formal allotment of the respective pieces of land in their favour. The Authority and the Society would be entitled to the proportionate refund the money from the State Government deposited by them for the acquisition of the said land.

(3.) THE writ petitioners in all the said four writ applications challenged a general notice issued by the Respondent -Collector, Patna, on '20.12.1995 asking the owners of the land to receive the Award prepared in Land Acquisition Case No. 63 of 1961 -62 for the land acquired for the Authority and the Society (a copy of the said general notice was annexed as one of the Annexures in the writ applications) and for a further direction to treat the land claimed by the writ petitioners to have been released from acquisition on the ground that they have purchased the same in an auction held under the Bihar & Orissa Public Demand Recovery Act in a certificate case by the Sub -Divisional Officer on behalf of the Collector, Patna, for realisation of the estate duty from the estate of Dwarika Mahto, to whom the land, admittedly, belonged before acquisition by the State and for further direction to the respondent -State authority not to disturb or interfere with their possession of the land. Some of the writ petitioners are purchasers from the auction purchasers.