STATE OF BIHAR Vs. VINAY KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard learned counsel for the State as well as the private respondents.

(2.) Appeal under Letters Patent provision has been moved against the order dated 04.04.2014.

(3.) Writ was filed by the private respondents when the State tried to deprive them of their land without due authority of law. Writ was numbered as C.W.J.C. No. 14921 of 2013. As per the narration in the impugned order, on the basis of a Land Acquisition Case No. 5 of 1984-1985, steps were taken to acquire 41 decimals of land appertaining to Cadastral Survey Plot No 3, Khata No 216 appertaining to Touzi No 26 situated at Mauza - Kumhrar, Azimabad, Kadamkuan, Patna. The said land were recorded in the names of the forefathers of the present petitioners. It was their case before the learned single Judge that though a notification under Sec. 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, was published in the district gazette of Patna on 16.07.1984, the State authorities did not take steps for compliance of the mandate of law under Sec. 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, within the specified period of two years. The position not having been clearly established by the State, which could disprove the stand taken by the private respondents, the learned single Judge, based on a series of decisions rendered by the Honourable Supreme Court starting with the case of Singareni Collieries Company Limited Vs. Vemuganti Ramakrishan Rao and others reported in (2013) 8 Supreme Court Cases 789 and the case of Pune Municipal Corporation and another Vs. Harakchand Misirimal Solanki and others, reported in (2014) 3 Supreme Court Cases 183, held that the land acquisition proceedings had lapsed and now in such a distant frame of time, the State was not entitled to dispossess the private respondents of their land.