DHANESHWARY Vs. LAND ACQUISITION OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution by twenty-six persons of Patna impugning the validity of two notifications, dated the 13th March, 1961 (Annexures 1 and 2), No. D. L. A. P.--269/61-3418-R and No. D. L. A. P.--269/61-3419-R, under Ss. 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act"). By the first notification the Government of Bihar intimated to the general public that a large block of land, having an area of 360.09 acres (1089 bighas, 5, kathas, 7.12 chitaks) in villages Rashidchak, Pahari and Ranipur, situated within the limits of the Patna Municipal Corporation, was required to be acquired for the public purpose of establishment of a Cattle-cum-Milk Colony in Patna. In the first notification Government further stated as follows:

(2.) The main contentions of Mr. Mukherjee for the petitioners are these:

(3.) Before discussing these two contentions, I may dispose of two preliminary objections raised by the respondents to the maintainability of this petition. Firstly, it was urged that a joint petition by twentysix persons who own different plots within the area under acquisition was not maintainable. In my opinion, this objection, being of a procedural nature, will not, by itself, suffice for rejecting the petition, unless prejudice is shown to have been caused. It is true that no two plots, even though they may lie adjacent to each other, may be alike, and it is possible to take the view that though one of them may be waste or arable land the other may be a building site. Hence it would have been much better if each of the petitioners had filed a separate application challenging the validity of the acquisition, so far as his plots were concerned, and filed necessary papers and affidavits to show that those plots were not arable or waste lands within the meaning of Section 17(1) of the Act. But the petition is a joint one by all the twenty six petitioners, and the allegations in the petition show clearly that they have asserted that all the lands are of the same quality, namely, that they are valuable building sites and not waste or arable lands. If the petitioners have chosen to take up this position and make a common cause, it will not be proper to throw out this petition in the absence of any evidence to show that prejudice has been caused to any of the parties. On the other hand, the filing of a common petition by all the petitioners has put them at a somewhat disadvantageous position, inasmuch as (as will be shown presently) admissions made by some of these petitioners in their application to the Chief Minister in the early stages of the acquisition proceedings regarding the nature of the land under acquisition may be used against all the petitioners in this application. In my opinion, therefore, this preliminary objection must be rejected.