Case: State Of Haryana  Vs. Northern Indian Glass Industries Ltd

2. The Appellant, State of Haryana, is assailing the Judgment dated 11.12.2007 passed by the High Court of Haryana in Civil Writ Petition No. 3750 of 2005 whereby the Notice to resume the land of the Respondent has been set aside. The Appellant State has been directed to comply with the principles of natural justice as perceived by the High Court, and, in consonance with its tenets, rehear the Respondent as well as the subsequent purchasers, and thereafter to decide the issue of resumption of the subject land by the Appellant State3. It is unfortunate, and indeed remarkable, that the fate of the subject agricultural land, measuring 358 kanals and 7 marlas, located in village Sankhol of Tehsil Bahadurgarh of District Rohtak, has been in a state of uncertainty since the year of its acquisition in 1973. The Respondent had approached the Appellant State on 18.5.1971 with a proposal to set up an industrial undertaking having 20,000 tonnes capacity for manufacture of sheet glass, requiring an investment plan of 4 crore,. It was projected that this industry would provide employment for as many as one thousand workmen. Keeping in perspective the palpable public purpose of generating employment and spurring industrial growth, the Appellant State approved the said proposal and issued a Notification and a Declaration under Sections 4 and 6 respectively of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (referred to as ?the Act? hereinafter) in 1973. The Award came to be passed in the following year 1974 which computed the compensation for the landowners at 3,93,688.12. Immediately after the passing of the Award on 16.10.1974, the Appellant State executed a Deed of Conveyance in favour of the Respondent, the relevant clauses of which shall hereafter be adverted to4. Being aggrieved with the quantum of compensation the landowners approached the Additional District Judge in Reference proceeding under Section 18 of the Act, who enhanced the compensation by 59,349/- vide Order dated 29.1.1979. The compensation was thereafter further enhanced to 8.10 lakh by the High Court vide Judgment dated 2.6.1988, which was not interfered with by this Court by the dismissal of the SLP of the Respondent. In the interregnum, on 1.8.1986, some of the landowners filed Execution proceedings under Order XXI Rule 11 of the CPC against the Respondent and the Appellant State for recovery of the enhanced compensation awarded to them. It is these proceedings which have supplied the bedrock for the dispute portrayed before us. In that execution case, the Additional District Judge proceeded to attach the acquired land, vide Orders dated 29.8.1987; and then directed its sale by way of auction vide Order dated 4.3.1989. The Respondent thereupon presented the Executing Court with an ingenious offer of private sale on the predication that the barren and water-logged land would not fetch sufficient funds to satisfy the decreed compensation through court auction. Suffice to note that the application of the Respondent for private sale seems to have received the imprimatur of the District Judge on 7.5.1991, and thence several portions of the subject land had been sold by the Respondent. Knowledge of these execution proceedings has been unconvincingly denied by the Appellant State which asserts that it came to know about them only in 1991, when some of the original landowners successfully challenged the acquisition proceedings on the ground of non-utilization of the subject land in CWP No. 14735 of 1991. The High Court quashed the acquisition proceedings in its entirety vide Judgment dated 5.3.1992 and directed that the land be returned to the original landownersThese Orders were overturned by this Court on 29.10.2002 in Northern India Glass Industries v. Jaswant Singh (2003) 1 SCC 335 inter alia with the observations that in the event?the land was not used for the purpose for which it was acquired, it was open to the Appellant State to take action but that did not confer any right on the respondents to ask for restitution of the land. As already noticed, the Appellant State in this regard has already initiated proceedings for resumption of the land. In our view, there arises no question of any unjust enrichment to the Appellant Company.?5. The Appellant State thereupon initiated resumption proceedings, pursuant to which a Committee was constituted by it on 27.5.2004, which visited the subject land and submitted its Report dated 16.6.2004. This Report has provided the primary plank for the Notice of Resumption dated 6.1.2005 issued by the Appellant State to the Respondent, which was challenged by the Respondent before the High Court in the CWP No. 3750 of 2005. This Notice has been annulled by the High Court vide the impugned Judgment on the ground of non adherence to the audi alteram partem principle, since the Respondent and the subsequent purchasers had not been given an opportunity of hearing. This is the solitary issue which arises before us.

Court's reasoning:
19. In the instant case, the conduct of the Respondent has not only been utterly unfair but, in fact, it smacks of fraud, malpractice and malfeasance. It cannot be justified as a simple error which may exonerate it of the allegations levelled against it by the Appellant State. According to its own affidavit filed before the High Court, the Respondent has executed 118 Sale Deeds in favour of various third parties, with several sales being in 2004-05. This is sought to be vindicated by the Respondent on the ground that since the land was returned to it in 2004 after the quashing of the acquisition was set aside by this Court, it could have executed final Sale Deeds in respect of Agreements to Sell of 1991 post repossession of the land. Whether it had entered into Agreements to Sell with third parties in 1991 or accepted Earnest Money thereagainst is not an enquiry to be made here. It is also the case of the Respondent that after the land remained in possession of the original landowners for twelve long years, it was beyond its control to establish the unit as was proposed and postulated at the time of acquisition and so in bona fide belief it sold the remaining land as well. The Respondent cannot predicate that after paying the cost of the land to the Appellant State and the enhanced compensation to the original landowners, it had become absolute owner of the land and consequently it could use the land in the manner it liked20. Some brief words with regard to persons who have purchased plots from the Respondent. If a diligent title-search had been conducted by them it would indubitably have disclosed that the sale transaction was contrary to the purpose of the acquisition, was not consonant with the clauses of the contract executed by the Appellant State and the Respondent and was intrinsically inconsistent with the terms and the tenor of law. Equities cannot emerge in favour of such purchasers who cannot but be presumed to have purposefully transgressed the law. Suchlike persons are not justified or entitled to seek impleadment in these proceedings. The impleadment applications are meritless and are dismissed21. The prayer in the writ petition was for the issuance of a writ of Certiorari quashing the Resumption Notice dated 6.1.2005 issued by the Appellant State. In the impugned Judgment the Division Bench has opined that the principles of natural justice applied irrespective of the nature of the cause or the gravity thereof and are not mere platitudes. In our analysis of the exposition of law contained hereinabove, we think that this unjustly sets far too broad and wide a parameter to the perceptions of natural justice. Quite to the contrary, Courts should be ?pragmatic rather than pedantic, realistic rather than doctrinaire, functional rather than formal and practical rather than precedential?. We cannot lose perspective of the fact that protracted litigation had already taken place between the parties as a consequence of which the legal position of all affected parties had already become well-known. It seems to us that in the writ petition, the challenge was predicated on the perceived failure to adhere to the audi alterem partem rule and not to the correctness of the decision to resume possession of the land. In any event, we harbour no manner of doubt that the circumstances of the case warrant the issuance of the Resumption Notice of the land by the Appellant State. We also note that the ‘Resumption Notice? has been issued to the Respondent alone which, because of its actions, has forfeited whatsoever rights it may have enjoyed over the land in question. In fact the Respondent may be liable to make over to the Appellant State all the profit that it has illegally and unjustifiably reaped in its misutilization of the lands acquired for it for the purpose of setting up an industrial unit for manufacture of sheet glass with the accompanying projection of providing employment to almost a thousand workmen. How this Resumption Notice will be implemented against third parties is a matter on which we would think it prudent not to make any observations. The Appellant State may not treat the observations made by us above pertaining to third parties who have purchased land from the Respondent as conclusively circumscribing any relief to them and/or rendering it unnecessary to give any hearing to them. The Appellant State will avowedly have to proceed in accordance with law, especially since it has not maintained a watchful eye on the manner in which the land was dealt with by the Respondent