ivil Appeal No 3574 of 1991
From the Judgment and Order dated 591990 of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in LPA No 127 of 1983
SK Mehta Dhruv Mehta and Aman Vachher for the Appel lant
OP Sharma KR Gupta Vivek Sharma RC Gubrele and Ms Nanita Sharma for the Respondents
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KANIA J
Leave granted
Counsel heard
The appellant Bhatinda Improvement Trust framed a development scheme under the Punjab Town Improvement Act 1922 referred to hereinafter as the said Act
Notices under Section 36 of the said Act in respect of the said scheme setting out the particulars referred to in the said Section were published in the Daily Tribune on May 31 1977 June 7 1977 and June 14 1977
The said notices were also published in the local daily Ajit on May 30 1977 June 6 1977 and June 13 1977 and in Punjab Government Gazette on June 17 1977 June 24 1977 and July 1977 respectively
A Notification as required under Section 42 of the said Act was published on June 30 1980 sanctioning the said develop ment scheme
The said Notices and 931 Notifications were challenged by the respondents in Civil Writ No 2508 of 1982 filed in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana inter alia on the ground that the Notification under Section 42 was not issued within the stipulated period of three years from the first publication of the Notice under Section 36 and on that account it was bad in law
This contention found favour with the learned Single Judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court who allowed the writ petition and set aside the Notification under Section 42 which was issued on June 30 1980
A Letters Patent Appeal preferred against the said Judgment was dismissed by a Division Bench of the said High Court and the present petition is directed against the aforesaid judgment of the Division Bench dis missing the said Letters Patent Appeal
It was submitted by Mr Mehta learned Counsel for the appellant that the time limit of three years for the issue of the Notification under Section 42 of the said Act was not prescribed under the said Act and that the first proviso to Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act
1894 was not ap plicable to the scheme in question
It was submitted by him that the provisions of Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act were in effect incorporated into the said Act which was enacted in 1922 from the very time of its enactment and hence any amendment to the said section after that date would not be applicable to acquisitions under the said Act
It was pointed out by him that the aforesaid time limit of three years was inserted in the Land Acquisition Act in 1984 long after the said Act was enacted as set out partic ularly hereinafter and hence it could not have any appli cation to the acquisitions made for the purposes of the said Act
In order to examine the correctness of the submissions of Mr Mehta it is necessary to take note of the relevant provisions of the said Act and the Land Acquisition Act
Section 28 of the said Act sets out the matters which may be provided for in a scheme
Under sub section 2 clause i of the said section it is inter alia provided that a scheme under said Act may provide for the acquisition under the Land Acquisition Act as modified by the said Act
Section 36 of the said Act provides that when a scheme under the said Act has been framed the trust shall prepare a notice set ting out the particulars contained in the said section
The relevant part of sub section 2 of the said Section runs as follows 2 The trust shall a notwithstanding anything contained in Section 78 932 cause the said notice to be published weekly for three consecutive weeks in the official Gazette and in a newspaper or newspapers with a statement of the period within which objec tions will be received 
Sub section 1 of Section 42 provides that the State Government shall notify the sanction of every scheme under the said Act and the trust shall forthwith proceed to exe cute the scheme and so on
Subsection 2 of the said Sec tion provides that a Notification under subsection 1 thereof shall be conclusive evidence that the scheme has been framed and sanctioned
Section 58 provides for the constitution of a tribunal for the purposes of performing the functions of a court in a reference to acquisition of land for improvement trust under the Land Acquisition Act
Section 59 provides for modification of the Land Acquisition Act as set out therein for the purposes of acquiring the land under the Land Acquisition Act for the said trust
We are not concerned with the actual modifications referred to in Section 59
We need only note that under sub section b of Section 59 it is provided that the Land Acquisition Act may be subject to further modifications as indicated in the Schedule to the said Act
Sub clause 1 of Clause 2 of the Schedule to the said Act referred to in Section 59 runs as follows 2 Notification under section 4 and declara tion under section 6 to be replaced by notifi cation under sections 36 and 42 of this Act 1 The first publication of a notice of any improvement scheme under section 36 of this Act shall be substituted for and have the same effect as publication in the Official Gazette and in the locality of a notification under subsection 1 of section 4 of the said Act except where a declaration under section 4 or section 6 of the said Act has previously been made and is still in force
 Sub section 1 of Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act inter alia provides that whenever it appears to the appro priate Government that land in any locality is needed or is likely to be needed for any public purpose a notification to that effect shall be published in the Official Gazette as prescribed in the said section
Section 5 A deals with hearing of objections
Sub section 1 of Section 6 inter alia provides that when the appropriate Government is satis fied after considering the 933 report if any made under Section 5 A sub section 2 that any particular land is needed for a public purpose a declaration to that effect shall be made as prescribed in the said section
The relevant part of the first proviso to the said sub section as substituted by Act 68 of 1984 runs as follows Provided that no declaration in respect of any particular land covered by a notification under Section 4 sub section 1 i published after the commencement of the Land Acquisition Amendment and Validation Ordinance 1967 1of 1967 but before the commencement of the Land Acquisition Amend ment Act 1984 shall be made after the expiry of three years from the date of the publication of the notification or
It was by this substituted proviso that the said time limit of three years was prescribed
Sub section 2 of Section 6 provides for the publication of the declaration under Section 6 and prescribes the manner in which the same shall be done
It is the submission of learned Counsel for the appel lant that by the aforesaid provisions and in particular Sections 28 58 and 59 of the said Act certain provisions of the Land Acquisition Act and particularly Section 6 there of were in effect incorporated into the said Act by refer ence and hence it is only such provisions of the Land Acquisition Act as were in existence at the time when the said Act was enacted in 1922 which could be said to be incorporated into the said Act
In support of his submission he placed strong reliance on the decision of a Bench com prising three learned Judges Bench of this Court in the case of Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd vs Union of India and Another  In that case it has been point ed out that Section 55 of the referred to hereinafter as the MRTP Act provides that any person aggrieved by the order made by the Central Government or the Commission The Monop olies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission under Section 13 or Section 37 of the MRTP Act may prefer an appeal to the Supreme Court on one or more of the grounds specified in Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure
It was pointed out in the judgment that on the date on which the MRTP Act came into force Section 100 of the Code of Civil Procedure specified 3 grounds on which a second appeal could lie to the High Court one of them being that the decision appealed against was contrary to law
By 934 an amendment made in 1976 Section 100 of the Code was subsituted by a new section which provides that a second appeal shall lie to the High Court only if the High Court is satisfied that the case involves a substantial question of law
The appellant took the stand that under the provisions of Section 100 of the Civil Procedure Code as it stood when the MRTP Act was enacted the appeal was clearly maintain able as the impugned order was contrary to law
The respond ents contended that although this might be so no substan tial question of law was involved in the second appeal and hence the appeal was not maintainable
It was submitted by the respondents that the maintainability of the appeal would have to be determined on the basis of Section 100 of the Code as amended
This Court took the view that the appeal was maintainable
It was held that on a proper interpreta tion of Section 55 it must be held that the grounds speci fied in Section 100 of the Code as it stood when the MRTP Act was enacted in 1969 were incorporated in Section 55 of the MRTP Act and the substitution of the new Section 100 did not affect or restrict the grounds as incorporated in Sec tion 55
In the said judgment this Court cited with approval the judgment of the Privy Council in Secretary of State for India in Council vs Hindustan Co operative Insurance Society Ltd 1958 IA 259 at 267
where the Judicial Committee observed In this country it is accepted that where a statute is incorporated by reference into a second statute the repeal of the first stat ute does not affect the second see the case collected in Craies on Statute Law 3rd edn
pp 349350
We find ourselves unable to accept the submissions of learned Counsel for the appellant
As pointed out by the Supreme Court and the Judicial Committee in the aforesaid decisions it is well settled law that where a statute is incorporated by a reference into a second statute the repeal of the first statute does not affect the second
Similarly in a case where a statute is incorporated by a reference into another statute an amendment of the statute so incorporated after the date of incorporation does not affect the second statute and the provisions of the latter statute remain the same as they were at the time of incorpo ration
It is again well settled that where one statute is referred to in another it may be merely by way of reference or by way of incorporation of the same
This depends on the language used in the latter statute and other relevant circumstances
In the present case however we find that there is no question of incorporation of any of the provi sions of the Land Acquisition Act into the said Act at all
The said Act does not deal with acquisition of land for the purposes of a 935 scheme as contemplated under the said Act
The acquisition of such land for the purposes of the scheme is left to the general law of the land in that connection namely the Land Acquisition Act which has to be resorted to for the pur poses of acquisition of land for the purposes of the schemes contemplated under the said Act
The only difference is that some of the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act as referred to in the relevant sections of the said Act are given effect to as amended by the relevant sections of the said Act
In these circumstances it cannot be held that any provisions of the Land Acquisition Act have been incorporat ed into the said Act and the provisions of the Land Acquisi tion Act which have to be applied are the provisions as they stand at the relevant time namely at the time of acquisition in the absence of a contrary intention
There is nothing to indicate that there was any such contrary intention in the present case
In these circumstances the notification under Section 42 should have been published within the period of three
years of the date of publication of the notification under Section 41 of the Land Acquisi tion Act as required under the first proviso to Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act
Under sub clause 1 of clause 2 of the Schedule to the said Act which we have referred to earlier the first publication of a notice of any im provement scheme under Section 36 of the said Act is sub stituted for and has the same effect as the publication in the Government Gazette of a notification under sub section 1 of Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act
The notice under section 36 of the said Act is required to be pub lished inter alia in a newspaper or newspapers as set out in section 362a of the said Act
In the present case such a notice was first published in the daily Ajit  on May 30 1977 and hence the notification under Section 42 of the said Act should have been published on or before May 30 1980
In fact the notification under Section 42 of the said Act admittedly was published on June 30 1980 and hence was clearly beyond time
In these circumstances the notice under Section 36 of the said Act lapsed on the expiry of three years from May 3G 1977 and no action pursuant to the said notice could be taken thereafter
The notification under Section 42 of the said Act was clearly beyond time and bad in law as it was not published within the period pro vided
The acquisition proceedings lapsed
The submission of learned Counsel for the appellant must be rejected
No other point was canvassed before us
In the result the appeal fails and is dismissed with costs
VPR Appeal dis missed


Summary:
Three charges were framed against the appellants A1 to A7
A7 was charged under Section 302 read with Section 109 IPC for instigating A1 to 6 to commit the murder Al A2 A4 A5 and A3 A6 were tried under Sections 147 and 148 IPC respectively and the third charge under section 302 read with Section 149 IPC was against A1 to A6 on the allegations that Al A2 A4 and A5 armed with sticks A3 armed with aruval bill hook and A6 armed with vel stick spear stick attacked the deceased at about 830 AM on January 28 1977 and caused him multiple injuries as a result of which he died on the same day
All the accused persons were acquitted by the learned Trial Judge against which when appeal was filed the High Court maintained the acquittal of A4 to A7 but reversed the findings in respect of A1 to A3 and were convicted under Section 304 Part I read with Section 34 IPC and were sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years against that this appeal was filed by the appellants A1 to A3 via Special Leave Petition
Disposing the appeal by modifying the sentence this Court HELD 1
Thirteen external injuries were found on the dead body of the deceased
Out of these 11 were on lower legs and arms
The intention of the appellants was to cause grievous hurt and as such the offence committed by them comes within the parameters of Section 325 IPC Keeping in view the nature of injuries on the person of the deceased and the facts and circumstances of this case the offence committed by the appellants comes within the mischief of Section 325 read with 34 IPC and convicted them under Section 325 IPC read with Section 34 IPC imposing the sentence of imprisonment already undergone by them and the sentence of Rs 7000 each as fine to be deposited before the Trial Court within four months which be paid to the fathermother of deceased 2 In the event of non payment of fine the appellants shall undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years
3A 3D F