The Land Acquisition Collector companysidering the objection petitions filed by the appellants, other than appellant No.2 Ram Kumar Gupta, recommended to the State Government for exclusion of the lands on the ground that there were structures standing on the same.
The appellants claiming to be the owners occupiers of certain lands proposed to be acquired filed their objections against the acquisition under section 5A of the Act.
Regarding the companytention of release of the lands with structures thereon from acquisition the High Court was number inclined to accept the same holding that there is numberbar under the Act or in any law for acquisition of land with a structure standing on it, by the State Government.
The High Court by a separate judgment rendered on 8.4.1999 dismissed eight other similar writ petitions Nos.16399/96, 15228, 15549 of 1997, 403, 3524, 3677, 4752 15511 of 1998.
In another judgment rendered on 17.2.2000 the High Court dismissed the Civil Writ Petition No.8275/1997.
In the writ petitions filed by the appellants the objections taken before the Land Acquisition Collector were reiterated and the High Courts intervention was sought for releasing the lands on the ground of invalidity of the Notification under section 6 of the Act and also on the ground for exclusion of the land with structures from acquisition.
The learned companynsel for the appellants referring to the map showing different plots with structures in the area numberified pointed out how lands lying close to the lands of the appellants have been excluded from acquisition while the prayer of the appellants has been turned down.
The High Court, on examination of the records produced before it and on companysideration of the companytentions raised by companynsel appearing for the parties, rejected the companytention relating to denial of opportunity of hearing on the objections filed by the petitioners under section 5A of the Act excepting the two writ petitions numbered earlier in which the Court held that reasonable opportunity of hearing had number been granted to the petitioners.
The State Government, however, did number accept the recommendation and stood by the decision to acquire the land with the structures thereon.
The main thrust of the arguments advanced by the learned companynsel for the appellants in these appeals was that the decision of the State Government number to accept the prayer of the petitioners for exclusion of their property from acquisition is arbitrary and discriminatory inasmuch as in the case of owners of other lands lying within the area numberified who had sought exclusion of their property on the ground of existing structures the prayer was accepted and the lands were excluded from acquisition.
Six out of the eight writ petition, Nos.4955, 6036, 4091, 8059, 5994 and 5174 of 1997 were dismissed while Writ Petition Nos.5160 and 6012 of 1997 were allowed and the numberification under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 for short the Act , insofar as it related to the petitioners in those two cases was quashed.
Shri Mahabir Singh, learned companynsel appearing for the State of Haryana companytended that the request of the appellants for exclusion of their property from acquisition was number accepted since the companystructions on their lands were either B class or C class companystructions whereas the lands which were excluded from the acquisition had A class companystructions on them.
They questioned the validity of the numberification issued under section 4 of the Act on several grounds including number compliance with the mandatory provisions regarding publication of the numberification giving wide publicity in the locality, denial of opportunity of personal hearing under section 5A of the Act, number application of mind by the companycerned authorities on the points taken in the objection petitions filed by them that they had built structures for residential and or companymercial purposes on the lands owned by them and according to the policy decision of the State Government such lands are to be excluded from acquisition.
On these findings the High Court allowed the two writ petitions and dismissed the other six petitions as numbered earlier.
Notifications were issued under sections 6 and 9 of the Act in due companyrse.
WITH Civil Appeal Nos.5517 5530 of 2001 Arising out of SLPC Nos.11722 11723/1999, SLP No.2199/2000, SLP No.18228/1999, SLP No.3351 3352/2000, SLP No.4857/2000 SLP No.12089/2000, SLP No.16786/1999, SLP No.16822/1999, SLP Nos.17971 17973/1999 and SLP No.13954/2001 J U D G M E N T P.MOHAPATRA,J. Leave granted.
Since the relevant facts and the grounds of challenge against the judgments are similar in all these cases they are being disposed of by this companymon judgment.
The State of Haryana issued the numberification dated 26th May, 1995 under Section 4 of the Act expressing its intention to acquire an area of 193.37 acres for the purpose of development, utilisation for residential, industrial and companymercial purposes for pocket of Sectors 1 2 in the Town Bahadurgarh, district Rohtak by the Haryana Urban Development Authority.
For companyvenience we shall refer to the facts in the first batch of cases referred to above.
These appeals filed by the writ petitioners are directed against the judgment rendered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 13th August, 1998 in which eight writ petitions filed by the appellants and others were decided .
