DHARMENDRA KUMAR VERMA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in this application seek a direction restraining the respondents from interfering with the petitioners' possession over their respective pieces of lands. The lands which petitioners 1 and 2 claim to own and possess are described in paras 3 and 4. of the writ petition, those claimed by petitioners 3, 4 and 5 in para 5 and those claimed by petitioners 6, 7 and 8 in para 7 of the writ petition.

(2.) THE disputed lands formed the subject matter of a land acquisition proceeding at the instance of the P.R.D.A. for the public purpose of developing Transport Nagar. The land acquisition proceeding was challenged before this Court by several persons including the present petitioners. It is stated in para 8 of the writ petition that the petitioners 1 and 2 filed CWJC No. 2408 of 1985 while CWJC No. 125 of 1986. was filed by petitioners 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 and the husband of petitioner no. 3. Those two writ petitions were heard by a bench of this Court along with some other similar writ petitioners. By judgment and order dated 22.1.1991 those writ petitions were allowed primarily on the ground that notification appertaining to the impugned acquisition proceeding were published in the district gazette and not in the official gazette of the State of Bihar. The judgment held that the district gazettes published by the Collector of the districts could not be treated to be the official gazette of the State and the notifications under sections 4 and 6 of the land Acquisition Act, not having been published in the official gazette did not, therefore, fulfill the statutory requirements and were accordingly liable to be quashed. Having thus allowed the writ petitions by quashing the notifications issued under Section 4 of the Act, the judgment went on to leave it open to the State Govt. to issue fresh notifications under the provisions of the Act and to start a fresh acquisition proceedings in accordance with law. For the sake of convenience hereinafter this division Bench judgment is referred to as the judgment in Arunodaya.

(3.) SOON after the judgment a review petition was filed on behalf of the P.R.D.A. which was registered as Civil Review No. 21 of 1991. This review petition was disposed of by order dated 13.9.1991 passed by the same Bench which had earlier allowed the batch of writ petitions including the two writ petitions filed on behalf of the present petitioners. The order passed in the review case was as follows: - "Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, the Review applications are being deposed of in the following terms: - "It is made clear that the orders passed in all the writ applications being CWJC Nos. 5016, 2408, 3676, 125, 2306, 2008 of 1985, 13. of 1986 and shall be confined only to the lands owned by the petitioners in the respective writ applications."