STATE OF BIHAR Vs. TULSI RAM TIBRIWALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These twelve appeals by the defendants which have been made analogous and have been heard together arise out of twelve suits instituted by twelve sets of plaintiffs The reliefs claimed in all the suits were more or less identical. The plain tiff-respondents are interested in different pieces and parcels of laud with or without construction thereon situate in village Rohraband Pergana Jharia, district Dhanbad. They prayed for a declaration that the land acquisition proceedings and the awards made therein arising out of a declaration dated the 5th January, 1951 and published in the Bihar Gazette of the 17th January, 1951 and purporting to have been issued under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and the acquisition made of the different pieces and parcels of land in which they were respectively interested were wholly void, illegal and without jurisdiction. There was also a prayer for a permanent injunction restraining the defendant-appellants, their agents and servants from taking possession of the suit properties.

(2.) Both the defendants, namely, the State of Bihar, and the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Ranchi, filed it joint written statement, and the challenge to the land acquisition proceedings was sought to be refuted on various grounds. It was asserted that the declaration under Section 6 made in the year 1953 was valid, and that the suit lands had been properly acquired.

(3.) As common questions of law and fact arose for determination in all the twelve suits and in the corresponding appeals arising therefrom before the lower appellate court; the suits as well as the appeals with the consent of the parties were heard together and were disposed of by one judgment In this Court as well, all these twelve appeals have been heard together and this judgment will govern all of them. The trial court having decreed all the twelve suits and the appeals by the defendants before the lower appellate court having falled, the defendants have preferred all these second appeals, which have been referred to Division Bench by the learned Single Judge before whom they first came for hearing.