IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. CWP No. 7731 of 2010 Date of Decision: April 30, 2010 Ram Narain and others …Petitioners Versus State of Haryana and others …Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE JITENDRA CHAUHAN Present: Mr. Jaswant Jain, Advocate, for the petitioners. 1. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 2. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? M.M. KUMAR, J. The instant petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution is directed against acquisition of land which was acquired by notification dated 19.5.1992 (P-1), under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for brevity, ‘the Act’) and declaration made on 18.5.1993 (P-2), under Section 6 of the Act. It is admitted as a fact that the award was announced on 17.5.1995. The sole ground for challenging the aforesaid acquisition is that the land belonging to the petitioners, measuring 8 Kanals 14 Marlas is in the middle of the whole land acquired. For the aforementioned purpose reliance has been placed on the inter-departmental correspondence dated 19.10.2006, 15.7.2008 and 1.9.2008 (P-4 to P-6), which shows that the decision for releasing of the land has to be taken at the highest level. Reliance has also been placed on the communication dated 15.1.2009 (P-7) to assert that the land belonging to the CWP No. 7731 of 2010 petitioners is not to be used for expansion of water works nor the same could be used for any gainful purposes. 2. We have heard learned counsel for the petitioners at a considerable length and are of the view that the instant petition is devoid of merit. It is admitted position that the acquisition proceedings culminated in passing of award dated 17.5.1995. It may be true that the petitioners earlier filed CWP No. 6905 of 1995 and as per the averment made in para 17 of the writ petition, the land in dispute was ‘inadvertently left out’ from the scope of the aforesaid petition. Therefore, the award attained finality about 15 years ago. The land free from all encumbrances vested in the State as the possession was taken. After such a huge delay and laches the plea of the petitioners concerning bona fide belief that earlier the land could not be included within the scope of CWP No. 6905 of 1995, cannot constitute the basis for issuance of direction to the State to release the land acquired way back in 1995. The provisions with regard to release of land made by Section 48 of the Act stands already exhausted. 3. The question whether the acquired land could be de-notified or restored back after the award and proceedings for taking possession under the Act has been undertaken, has already been answered by us in the cases of Joginder Singh and others v. Chandigarh Administration and others (CWP No. 7391 of 1988, decided on 23.2.2010); Jain School Society v. State of Haryana and another (CWP No. 3772 of 2010, decided on 4.3.2010) as well as by another Division Bench of this Court (of which one of us, M.M. Kumar, J. was a member) in the case of Gurkirpal Singh v. Financial Commissioner (Revenue) and Secretary, Government of Punjab, Department of Revenue and others (CWP No. 10511 of 2007, decided on 9.5.2008). In the above mentioned cases, after referring to the 2 CWP No. 7731 of 2010 provisions of Section 48 of the Act and various judgments of Hon’ble the Supreme Court rendered in the cases of State of M.P. v. Vishnu Prasad Sharma, AIR 1966 SC 1593; Lt. Governor of H.P. v. Sri Avinash Sharma, AIR 1970 SC 1576; Bangalore Development Authority v. R. Hanumaiah, (2005) 12 SCC 508; Pratap v. State of Rajasthan, (1996) 3 SCC 1; Mohan Singh v. International Airport Authority of India, (1997) 9 SCC 132; Printers (Mysore) Ltd. v. M.A. Rasheed, (2004) 4 SCC 460; Mandir Shree Sitaramji alias Shree Sitaram Bhandar v. Land Acquisition Collector, AIR 2005 SC 3581; Balmokand Khatri Educational and Industrial Trust, Amritsar v. State of Punjab, (1996) 4 SCC 212; Balwant Narayan Bhagde v. M.D. Bhagwat, AIR 1975 SC 1767; Union of India v. Jaswant Rai Kochhar, (1996) 3 SCC 491; Ravi Khullar v. Union of India, (2007) 5 SCC 231; State of Maharashtra v. Mahadeo Deoman Rai alias Kalal, (1990) 3 SCC 579; Bhagat Singh v. State of U.P., (1999) 2 SCC 384; S.S. Rathore v. State of M.P., AIR 1990 SC 10; and Northern Indian Glass Industries (supra) it has been concluded that once the land is acquired in accordance with the procedure established by law, award has been announced and the possession taken then there is no provision in the Act to de-notify the land and restore back possession to the land owners. 4. As a sequel to the above discussion, the instant petition fails and the same is accordingly dismissed. (M.M. KUMAR) JUDGE (JITENDRA CHAUHAN) April 30, 2010 JUDGE Pkapoor 3