IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.1036 of 2011 Date of decision: 31.01.2011 Dalip Singh and others …..Petitioners versus The State of Haryana and another ……Respondents CORAM: Hon’ble Mr.Justice Jasbir Singh Hon’ble Mr.Justice Rakesh Kumar Garg Present: Mr.Amit Jain, Advocate for the petitioners Jasbir Singh, J. (Oral) CM No.1464 of 2011 Application allowed, affidavit is taken on record. CWP No.1036 of 2011 This order will dispose of CWP Nos.1036 of 2011 and 1060 of 2011, involving similar question of law and facts. For facility of reference, facts are being taken from CWP Nos.1036 of 2011. This writ petition has been filed with a prayer to quash a notification dated 2.6.2009 (P3), issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (in short, the Act), proposing to acquire land situated in many villages, including an area measuring 393.53 acres, in village Badshahpur. Above said notification includes 15 kanal 10 marla of land owned by the petitioners. Further challenge has been made to a notification, issued under Section 6 of the Act on 31.5.2010 (P6), showing an intention Civil Writ Petition No.1036 of 2011 of the authorities to finally acquire an area measuring 233.84 acres of land in village Badshahpur. In this writ petition, the petitioners have raised two grievances: (i) that despite Policy being in existence, constructed buildings of the petitioners have been ordered to be acquired, whereas relief was given to many other land owners by releasing their buildings/ houses from acquisition. (ii) that objections filed under Section 5-A of the Act were not properly heard by the Land Acquisition Collector which vitiates the process of acquisition. When this matter came up for hearing on 20.1.2011, we asked the petitioners a specific question as to whether any part of land owned by them, out of the above mentioned 15 kanal 10 marla has been kept out of acquisition or not and the case was adjourned. In response to the said query, an affidavit has now been filed by the petitioners. Relevant contents of the affidavit read thus:- “That the land of the deponent falls in Khewat No.881/828 Khata No.962 Rect. No.67 Killa No.8(8-0), 11/2(3- 10), 19/2(4-00) total land measuring 15 kanal 10 marlas situated within the revenue estate of village Badshahpur Tehsil and Distt. Gurgaon. As per the notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act the land notified to be acquired in Rect No.67 Killa Nos.8(8-0), 11/2 (3-10) and 19(7-15) and as per notification under Section 6 the land which is declared to be acquired is Rect. No.67 Killa Nos.8(8-0), and 19 min (4-15). The deponent/ petitioners have not received any information 2 Civil Writ Petition No.1036 of 2011 regarding the release of any land falling in their share. Thus, no part of the land of the deponent/ petitioners are released from the acquisition to the best of their knowledge.” It is apparent from the contents of the affidavit that 3 kanal of land owned by the petitioners was not made subject matter of notification issued under Section 6 of the Act. In the writ petition, above said fact is not mentioned. Rather, it was agitated before us that no part of the land owned by the petitioners was kept out of the acquisition. By stating as above, an attempt has been made to mislead the Court. Such an attitude is not acceptable. What treatment should be given to such like litigants, an answer was given by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Dalip Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh and others, (2010) 2 Supreme Court Cases 114, in which, it was held as under:- “A party which has misled the Court in passing an order in its favour is not entitled to be heard on the merits of the case. A person who invokes the High Court’s jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution is duty-bound to place all the facts before the Court without any reservation. If there is suppression of material facts or twisted facts have been placed before the High Court then it will be fully justified in refusing to entertain a petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution. Jurisdiction under Articles 32 and 226 of the Constitution is extraordinary, equitable and discretionary and it is imperative that the petitioner approaching the writ court must come with clean hands and put forward all the facts 3 Civil Writ Petition No.1036 of 2011 before the Court without concealing or suppressing anything and seek an appropriate relief. If there is no candid disclosure of relevant and material facts or the petitioner is guilty of misleading the Court, his petition may be dismissed at the threshold without considering the merits of the claim.” In the case of Dalip Singh (Supra), the Supreme Court referred to the observations made by it in the case of Prestige Lights Ltd. V. SBI, (2007) 8 Supreme Court Cases 449, in which, the Hon’ble Supreme Court observed that:- “In exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, the High Court will always keep in mind the conduct of the party who is invoking such jurisdiction. If the applicant does not disclose full facts or suppresses relevant materials or is otherwise guilty of misleading the Court, then the Court may dismiss the action without adjudicating the matter on merits. The rule has been evolved in larger public interest to deter unscrupulous litigants from abusing the process of court by deceiving it. The very basis of the writ jurisdiction rests in disclosure of true, complete and correct facts. If the material facts are not candidly stated or are suppressed or are distorted, the very functioning of the writ courts would become impossible.” Not only as above, grievance of the petitioners that objections filed under Section 5-A of the Act were not heard by the Land Acquisition Collector, also deserves to be rejected. It is on record that the petitioners filed objections under Section 5-A of the Act by stating that they have raised construction in some portion of the land total measuring 15 kanal 10 4 Civil Writ Petition No.1036 of 2011 marla. It is only contention of counsel for the petitioners that effective opportunities of hearing were not given before deciding their objections filed under Section 5-A of the Act. Prayer was for exempting the land from acquisition, the very fact that after taking note of the objections filed by the petitioners, the Land Acquisition Collector recommended release of their land to the extent of 3 kanal shows that there was proper application of mind. The petitioners have raised one more contention in this writ petition that by not releasing their land, discrimination has been done to them, because land of many other land owners was released from acquisition. Once, the petitioners’ land also stood released from acquisition, this grievance is not available to the petitioners. Accordingly, both the writ petitions stand dismissed with costs of ` 5,000/- in each case. The petitioners are directed to deposit the amount of costs with the Secretary, State Legal Services Authority, Union Territory of Chandigarh, Sector 9, Chandigarh, within 15 days from today, failing which the Secretary shall initiate the necessary recovery proceedings. (Jasbir Singh) Judge 31.01.2011 (Rakesh Kumar Garg) gk Judge 5