IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH CWP No. 1123 of 2006 Date of Decision: March 12,2008 Devander Sagar etc. ...........Petitioners Versus State of Haryana and others .......... Respondents Coram: Hon'ble Mr.Justice M.M.Kumar Hon'ble Mrs. Justice Sabina Present: Mr.Amit Jain, Advocate for the petitioners. Mr.Ashish Kapoor, Additional Advocate General, Haryana * * * M.M. Kumar, J. This order shall dispose of C.W.P. No. 1123 of 2006, CWP No. 2166 of 2007 and CWP No. 1465 of 2006 as the common question of law is involved therein. However, facts have been referred from CWP No. 1123 of 2006. This petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution with a prayer for quashing notification dated 18.1.2001(P-1) issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894,(for brevity the `Act') declaration dated 30.12.2004 issued under Section 6 of the Act (P- 5). Brief facts of the case are that the respondent-State issued a notification dated 18.1.2001 under Section 4 read with Section 17(1) of the Act proposing to acquire 12.18 acres of land falling in village Kheri Markanda Hadbast No. 378 and 11.64 acres of village Ratgal Hadbast CWP No. 1123 of 2006 No. 376, 0.70 acres of Dara Kalan Hadbat No. 379 for the public purpose, namely for the development and utilization of land as for out fell storm sewer and for sewerage treatment plant and Samshan Ghat at Kurukshetra. Thereafter, the notification under Section 6 was issued on 19.1.2001. Some of the land owners including the petitioners challenged the notification under Section 4 read with Section 17 by arguing that urgency clause under Section 17 has been illegally invoked without any warrant. The Division Bench after recording the fact that the award of the land was announced on 21.10.2006 has held that in the aforementioned factual position a period of 30 days could be granted to the petitioner for filing the objections under Section 5-A of the Act. It was further found that 80% of the compensation contemplated by Section 17 (3A) of the Act had also not been paid and,therefore, it was concluded that invoking of urgency clause was wholly unwarranted. The Division Bench in its order dated 12.1.2004 (P-3) while disposing of CWP No. 4887 of 2002 has concluded as follows:- “In the facts and circumstances of the case, as mentioned above, in our view, interest of justice would be served, if we quash declaration under Section 6 of the Act dated 19.1.2001, and all subsequent proceedings that might have been taken thereafter with liberty to the petitioners to file objections under Section 5-A of the Act within 30 days from the date of receipt of a certified copy of the order, which, naturally shall be heard by the State or the authority constituted by the State for that purpose, in accordance with law and after giving an appropriate hearing to the petitioners if the objections are rejected, naturally, the Government will be in its power to issue declaration under Section 6 of the Act. Petition is disposed of accordingly. However, parties 2 CWP No. 1123 of 2006 are left to bear their own costs.” After passing of the order by the Division Bench, the petitioners filed the objections on 11.2.2004 within a period of 30 days but the objections could be heard only in August, 2004 and the notification under Section 6 was issued on 30.12.2004. Mr.Amit Jain, learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that if the notification under Section 6 of the Act has been quashed in a writ petition then fresh notification in respect of the same land by keeping alive the notification under Section 4 could only be issued within the statutory period prescribed for that purpose i.e. only one year. In that regard, he has placed reliance on paras 12, 14 and 15 on a Constitution Bench judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Padma Sundara Rao vs. State of Tamil Nadu, 2002(1) PLJ 397 and has argued that while dealing with the aforementioned issues their Lordships have held that such a course is not open to the acquisition authorities. Mr. Ashish Kapoor, learned State counsel has, on the other hand, placed heavy reliance on the observations made by a Division Bench in order dated 12.1.2004 while disposing of CWP No. 4887 of 2002. According to the learned counsel, in the operative portion (supra), the Division Bench has observed that if the objections raised by the petitioners are rejected then the Government was entitled to issue declaration under Section 6 of the Act within one year from the date of the order of Division Bench. He has urged that the Division Bench had passed order on 12.1.2004 (P-3) and declaration under Section 6 of the Act was issued on 30.12.2004. He has further argued that the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Padma Sundara Rao's case (supra) has 3 CWP No. 1123 of 2006 to be applied prospectively and the matter which have attained finality are not to be reopened. After hearing learned counsel for the parties, we are of the considered view that there is merit in the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioner. The notification under Section 4 read with Section 17 (1) of the Act in the present case, was issued on 18.1.2001 and a declaration under Section 6 was issued on 19.1.2001. The Division Bench held that there was no urgency and the provisions of Section 17 of the Act could not be invoked. It was further found by the Division Bench while disposing of Civil Writ Petition No.4887 of 2002 vide its order dated 12.1.2004 that an award was announced on 21.10.2006 and compensation amounting to 80 per cent contemplated by Section 17(3)(A) of the Act had also not been paid to the owners. Accordingly, the Division Bench set aside the declaration made under Section 6 of the Act on 19.1.2001 with all subsequent proceedings. It has granted liberty to the petitioner to file objections under Section 5A of the Act within 30 days from the date of the receipt of certified copy of the order. The Division Bench had observed that if the objections were rejected then the respondents-State would be within its powers to issue declaration under Section 6 of the Act. It is further appropriate to mention that proceedings of acquisition remained stayed before this Court from 7.2.2002 to 12.1.2004 in pursuance to the order passed in Civil Writ Petition No.4887 of 2002. This period of more than 23 months, if excluded from consideration the, no declaration under Section 6 could have been issued because a period of more than one year had already been elapsed. Even otherwise, in the case of Padma Sundara Rao (supra), the question has been raised and decided as to whether after 4 CWP No. 1123 of 2006 quashing of notification under Section 6 of the Act, therefore, period of one year is available to the State Government to issue another notification under Section 6. The answer to the aforementioned question has been given in the negative as is evident from paras 14 to 16 of the judgment which reads as under:- “14. While interpreting a provision the court only interprets the law and cannot legislate it. If a provision of law is misused and subjected to the abuse of process of law, it is for the legislature to amend, modify or repeal, it, if deemed necessary. (See Rishabh Agro Industries Ltd. v. P.N.B. Capital Services Ltd. (2000) 5 SCC 515). The legislative casus omissus cannot be supplied by judicial interpretative process . Language of Section 6(1) is plain and unambiguous. There is no scope for reading something into it, as was done in Narasimhaiah case. In Nanjudaiah case the period was further stretched to have the time period run from date of service of the High Court’s order. Such a view cannot be reconciled with the language of Section 6(1). If the view is accepted it would mean that a case can be covered by not only clause (i) and/or clause (ii) of the proviso to Section 6 (1), but also by a non-prescribed period. Same can never be the legislative intent. 15. Two principles of construction – on relating to casus omissus and the other in regard to reading the statute as a whole – appear to be well settled. Under the first principle a casus omissus cannot be supplied by the court except in the case of clear necessity and when reason for it is found in the four corners of the statute itself but at the same time a casus omissus should not be readily inferred and for that purpose all the parts of a statute or section must be construed together and every clause of a section should be construed with reference to the context and other clauses thereof so that the construction to be put on a particular provision makes a consistent enactment of the whole statute. This would be 5 CWP No. 1123 of 2006 more so if literal construction of a particular clause leads to manifestly absurd or anomalous results which could not have been intended by the legislature. “An intention to produce an unreasonable result”, said Danckerts, L.J., in Artemiou v. Procopiou 15 (1966) 1 QB 878 : (1965) 3 All ER 539 : (1965) 3 WLR 1011 (CA) (at All ER pp.544-I), “is not to be imputed to a statute if there is some other construction available”. Where to apply words literally would “defeat the obvious intention of the legislation and produce a wholly unreasonable result”, we must “do some violence to the words” and so achieve that obvious intention and produce a rational construction. (Per Lord Reid in Luke v. IRC 1963 AC 557”(1963) 1 All ER 655 : (1963) 2 WLR 559 (HL) where at AC p.577 he also observed : (All ER p.664-1) “This is not a new problem, though our standard of drafting is such that it rarely emerges.”] 16. The plea relating to applicability of the stare decisis principles is clearly unacceptable. The decision in K.Chinnathambi Gounder AIR 1980 Mad 251 was rendered on 22.6.1979 i.e. much prior to the amendment by the 1984 Act. If the legislature intended to give a new lease of life in those cases where the declaration under Section 6 is quashed, there is no reason why it could not have done so by specifically providing for it. The fact that the legislature specifically provided for periods covered by orders of stay or injunction clearly shows that no other period was intended to be excluded and that there is no scope for providing any other period of limitation. The maxim actus curiae neminem gravabit highlighted by the Full Bench of the Madras High Court has no application to the fact situation of this case - (emphasis added).” Thus, it is evident that no fresh lease of life would be available to the State Government to issue a fresh declaration under 6 CWP No. 1123 of 2006 Section 6 of the Act, and accordingly, the declaration dated 30.12.2004 issued under Section 6 of the Act (Annexure P-5) is liable to be set aside alongwith notification dated 18.1.2001 (Annexure P-4). The argument of the learned State counsel that liberty was given to the State Government to issue declaration under Section 6 of the Act, if the objections were rejected by the Division Bench in its order dated 12.1.2004 (P-3) suffers from various legal infirmities. Firstly, if a period of one year is construed from the date of order dated 12.1.2004 even then the acquisition proceedings should be saved as no award has been passed within a period of two years. Therefore, the argument raised cannot be accepted and we have no hesitation to reject the same. The other argument is that the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court is prospective in nature also lacks any substance because the judgment in Padma Sundara Rao (supra) was delivered on 13.3.2002 and issuing acquisition proceedings in the present case had not attained finality. Therefore, the issue raised in the instant petition would be governed by the ratio of the judgment rendered in Padma Sundara Rao (supra), therefore, the argument is hereby rejected. As a sequel to the aforementioned discussion, this petition succeeds. A notification dated 18.1.2001 (P-1), declaration dated 30.12.2004 issued under Section 6 (P-5) and all other proceedings pursuant thereto are hereby quashed. The petition stands disposed of in the above terms. However, in the peculiar legal position revealed in the instant petition, we do not impose any cost. ( M.M.Kumar ) Judge 7 CWP No. 1123 of 2006 ( Sabina ) Judge March 12,2008 Arya/sd 8