IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH 1. Civil Writ Petition No.6363 of 2010 Lovkesh Chander and others ….. Petitioners Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents 2. Civil Writ Petition No.6654 of 2010 Inderjit Singh and others ….. Petitioners Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents 3. Civil Writ Petition No.6867 of 2010 Kunwar Pal and others ….. Petitioners Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents 4. Civil Writ Petition No.6888 of 2010 Jalphool Singh and others ….. Petitioners Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents 5. Civil Writ Petition No.6962 of 2010 Smt. Abha Maheshwari ….. Petitioner Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents Civil Writ Petition Nos. 6363, 6654, 6867, 6888, 6962, 7057, 14000 of 2010 and 17439 of 2008 6. Civil Writ Petition No.7057 of 2010 M/s Kataria Construction Pvt. Ltd., ….. Petitioner Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents 7. Civil Writ Petition No.14000 of 2010 Sukhbir Singh and another ….. Petitioner Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents 8. Civil Writ Petition No.17439 of 2008 Bethany Nagar Residents Welfare Association ….. Petitioner Versus The State of Haryana and others ….Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE JASBIR SINGH HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH Present: Mr. Lokesh Sinhal, Advocate, Mr. Adarsh Jain, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. R. S. Sihota, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Ashok K. Sharma, Advocate for the petitioner in CWP No.6654 and 6888 of 2010. Mr. Kanwaljit Singh, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Harmanjit Singh, Advocate. Mr. Kamal Sehgal, Addl. AG, Haryana, for respondent-State. Mr. Hemant Saini, Advocate for respondent No.3. Mr. Y. K. Sharma, Advocate for respondent No.5 in 2 Civil Writ Petition Nos. 6363, 6654, 6867, 6888, 6962, 7057, 14000 of 2010 and 17439 of 2008 CWP No.6363, 6867 and 14000 of 2010. 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see The judgment? Yes/No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? Yes/No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes/No Jasbir Singh, J. (Oral) This order will dispose of 8 writ petitions bearing CWP Nos.6363, 6654, 6867, 6888, 6962, 7057, 14000 of 2010 and 17439 of 2008, involving similar questions of law and facts. For the purpose of dictating order, facts are being mentioned from CWP No.6363 of 2010. This writ petition has been filed to lay challenge to a notification issued under Section 4 read with Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (in short, the Act), on August 14, 2008 (P-2), proposing to acquire 116.98 Acres of land for a public purpose, namely, for the development and utilization of land for master plan roads of Sector 75 to 89 as per Development Plan of Faridabad and falling in village Murtezapur etc. Further challenge has been laid to a declaration issued under Section 6 read with Section 7 of the Act on August 30, 2008 (P-4), finally ordering acquisition of the above said land. It is contention of counsel for the petitioners that for sector roads the provision of Sector 17 of the Act cannot be invoked, as the public purpose cannot be termed as such an emergency where the State could not wait for 30 days to give benefit of Section 5-A of the Act to the land owners. He further states that right of hearing as per the provisions of Section 5-A of the Act is akin to a fundamental right and it cannot be taken away in a cursory manner 3 Civil Writ Petition Nos. 6363, 6654, 6867, 6888, 6962, 7057, 14000 of 2010 and 17439 of 2008 as has been done in the present case. To claim relief reliance has been placed upon a judgment passed in CWP No.9065 of 2010 decided on 22.11.2010 titled as Rohtash and others versus State of Haryana and others. As per facts on record, this acquisition vide notification mentioned above, was challenged for the first time in one of these writ petitions bearing No.17439 of 2008 on 21.10.2008, wherein dispossession of the land owner/petitioners was stayed. Award was pronounced on 21.08.2010. Learned State counsel Shri Kamal Sehgal, states that even without admitting any objection raised by the petitioners to the acquisition, if the Court is of the opinion that the benefit of Section 5- A of the Act is due to them, from the date of interim order passed by this Court, if that period is excluded, the competent authority has sufficient time to pass an award afresh, after giving an opportunity of hearing to the land owners. After hearing learned counsel for the parties, we are convinced that the contention raised by the petitioners in this writ petition is squarely covered in their favour vide the ratio of judgment passed in Rohtash’s case (supra). In that case also the land was ordered to be acquired for the development and utilization for sector roads by invoking the provision of Section 17 of the Act, which did not found favour with this Court and taking note of a fact that time was still available to the State authorities to pass a fresh award, after granting hearing to the land owners notification issued under Section 6 of the Act was quashed qua the petitioners therein. In terms of ratio of the judgment mentioned above, notification dated 30.08.2008 issued under Section 6 of the Act 4 Civil Writ Petition Nos. 6363, 6654, 6867, 6888, 6962, 7057, 14000 of 2010 and 17439 of 2008 needs to be quashed qua the petitioners. In this case an interim stay order was passed on 21.10.2008, therefore, the period from that date till today is to be excluded from consideration for calculating the time within which an award is to be passed as per the Act. Thus, the competent Authority still has time to pass a fresh award after giving due opportunity of hearing to the land owners. In the circumstances, we allow these writ petitions in terms of the observation as mentioned above and direct the petitioners/land owners to file objections under Section 5-A of the Act against the proposed acquisition within 30 days from today, before the Land Acquisition Collector, Faridabad. The Land Acquisition Collector, Faridabad, thereafter will give notice to them for hearing and then make a recommendation as per law to acquire the land or otherwise. The State authorities shall not be influenced by any action taken by them earlier to the filing of these writ petitions and take an independent decision afresh on the recommendations made by the Land Acquisition Collector. ( JASBIR SINGH ) JUDGE ( AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH ) JUDGE 27th May, 2011 Shivani Kaushik 5