IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.6364 of 2010 Date of decision: 7.12.2010 Baljit Kaur @ Balbir Kaur …..Petitioner versus State of Punjab and others ……Respondents CORAM: Hon’ble Mr.Justice Jasbir Singh Hon’ble Mr.Justice Augustine George Masih Present: Mr.S.C.Arora, Advocate for the petitioner Mr.Manohar Lall, Addl.A.G. Punjab Jasbir Singh, J. (Oral) By filing this writ petition, the petitioner prays that notifications, issued under Sections 4 and 6 read with Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (in short, the Act) (P2 and P3), be quashed. It is apparent from the records that vide notifications mentioned above, a vast track of land, including land of the petitioner, was ordered to be acquired for a public purpose, namely, extension of ‘Karniwala Drain from RD-7900-8900 out falling into Karniwala Link Drain at RD-7900’, tehsil Gidderbaha, district Muktsar. The land was sought to be acquired by invoking the provisions of Section 17 of the Act treating it as a case of emergency. It is not in dispute that notifications under Sections 4 and 6 of the Act were issued on same date i.e. 10.6.2009. When notice of motion was issued on 7.4.2010, following contention of counsel for the petitioner was noticed by this Court:- Civil Writ Petition No.6364 of 2010 “Learned counsel for the petitioners contends that notification under Section 4 read with Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for brevity ‘the Act’) and declaration under Sectin 6 read with Section 17 of the Act (P-2 & P-3) have been issued on 10.6.2009, which is patently illegal.” After issuance of notice of motion, operation of the impugned notifications was also stayed till further orders. On 24.5.2010, this Court observed as under:- “As short question of law has been involved and the dates of notification issued under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 are to be authenticated from the perusal of record, we direct the respondent-State to produce the record.” In the meantime, as per information supplied, award was also passed on 22.6.2010 and the payment of compensation was made to the land owners except the petitioner. By noting above said facts, this Court on 7.10.2010, passed the following order:- “It is not in dispute that notification under Section 4 read with Section 17 and under Section 6 read with Section 17 was issued on the same date. The above said situation has not been favoured by the Hon’ble Surpeme Court in State of Uttar Pradesh vs. Radhey Shyam Nigam, 1989 AIR (SC) 682. In this case, operation of the notifications (Annexure P-2 & P-3) were stayed on 7.4.2010. In this situation, learned State counsel seeks time to get instructions whether it is viable to withdraw the notification issued under Section 6 and thereafter take appropriate action. 2 Civil Writ Petition No.6364 of 2010 On request, adjourned to 27.10.2010. Copy of this order be placed on the file of other connected case.” On 27.10.2010, the State counsel informed this Court that the process has been started to withdraw the notification issued under Section 6 read with Section 17 of the Act. Today again, a prayer has been made to grant further time, to which, the Court is not inclined. It is apparent from the records and not disputed before us that simultaneous issuance of notifications under Sections 4 and 6 read with Section 17 (4) of the Act is not proper compliance with provisions of the Act. To press claim of the petitioner, her counsel has placed reliance upon judgments of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in State of Uttar Pradesh vs. Radhey Shyam Nigam, (1989) 1 SCC 591 and in Mohan Singh and others v. International Airport Autyority of India, (1997) 9 SCC 132. Reliance was also placed upon a Division Bench judgment of this Court in CWP No.17663 of 2009 titled as Karamjit Singh and others v. State of Punjab and others, decided on 3.2.2010. By stating as above, counsel for the petitioner argued that in fact, there was no emergency. The land has been acquired only for extension of already existing drain. In the written statement filed, it has been stated that to remove water logging from the area, extension was needed. However, at the time of arguments, counsel for the respondent- State has failed to rebut a contention raised that the water logging problem was existing in the area since from the year 2002. In view of facts of this case and taking note of ratio of judgments, mentioned above, we allow this writ petition, quash notification 3 Civil Writ Petition No.6364 of 2010 issued under Section 6 read with Section 17 of the Act, qua the petitioner. Consequently, to that extent, the award is also set aside. One month’s time from today is given to the petitioner to file objections as per provisions of Section 5-A of the Act. The Land Acquisition Collector is directed to dispose of objections filed by the petitioner as per law and then making recommendation for acquisition of the land or otherwise. The authorities still have the time to issue notification under Section 6 of the Act and if the authorities are interested, they may do so within the period of limitation. (Jasbir Singh) Judge 07.12.2010 (Augustine George Masih) gk Judge 4