JAGRUP SINGH Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition pertains to ac -quisition of the petitioner's land situated at Chuck 2 -e Chhoti Tehsil and District Sri -ganganagar. This is second time that the petitioner has come before this Court chal -lenging the notification dated 9/09/1987, issued under S. 4 of the Central Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'), annexed along with the petition as Annexure 4, and declaration under Sec. 6 of the Act, dated 10 -9 -1987 (published in Gazette Extraordinary dated 11 -9 -1987), covering the land comprised in the noti -fication Annexure 4, which has been annexed as Annexure 5, to the writ petition. The public purpose for which the land in question is sought to be acquired, so stated to be in these annexures, is that the land in question is required for construction of sewerage plant and strips, within the Municipal Council, Sriganganagar. In the first instance, after publication of notification under S. 4 of the Act, which was published on 11 -9 -1987, in the Official Gazette; the petitioner's co -licensee received a notice dated 11 -9 -1987 on 25 -9 -1987, purported to have been issued by the Land Acquisition Officer, Sriganganagar under S. 9 of the Act. The petitioner filed writ petition, number - S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 2420/87 - Brij Mohan Narain v. Land Acquisition Officer and others; challenging the acquisition proceedings. After filing of the writ petition, the declaration dated 10 -7 -1987 under S. 6 read with S. 17(4) of the Act, was published in the Official Gazette, on 8 -10 -1987. The earlier writ petition was filed on 3 -10 -1987. In the said writ petition, a prayer was made that the respondents may be restrained from publishing the declaration under S. 6 in pursuance of notification under S. 4 of the Act of 1894.

(2.) The aforesaid writ petition along with other writ petitions came to be decided by a Division Bench of this Court, by a common judgement dated 2 -8 -1988. It was held that notice under Section 9 having been issued before publication of the declaration under Section 6, was invalid. Until decision of the writ petition, declaration under S. 6 was published only in the Official Gazette dated 8 -10 -1987, and had not been published in the two daily newspapers circulating in the locality in which the land was situated, of which at least one had to be in the regional language and the Collector had also not caused public notice of the substance of such declaration, to be given at convenient places in the locality in which the land was situated. On a statement having been made on behalf of learned counsel for the respondents, that before proceeding further in the acquisition matter, the publication of the declaration shall be carried out in terms of S. 6(2) of the Act and it is only after compliance with the provisions of S. 6 that the land in question will be acquired. The Court disposed off the matter, by quashing the notice under Section 9 of the Act, issued by the Collector, as noticed above, and directed the respondents to comply with the provisions of Section 6(2) of the Act, concerning publication of declara -tion within 2 months. The publication of declaration under S. 6 was not made within 2 months' period, as fixed by the aforesaid judgement but ultimately, the declaration was published on 15/01/1990, in a Hindi daily "Sima Sandesh" and in an another local daily "Lok Sammat".

(3.) The petitioner has filed this writ peti -tion challenging land acquisition proceedings once again. In the writ petition, the petitioner has raised very many grounds, challenging the issuance of notification under S. 4 of the Act as well as declaration under S. 6 of the Act of 1894. The principal contentions raised by learned counsel for the petitioner are as under :