RESPONDENT: U.O.I. AND ORS. DATE OF JUDGMENT13/11/1992 [M.H. KANIA , CJ., N.M. KASLIWAL AND N.P. SINGH, JJ.] ACT: Land Acquisition Act, 1894: Sections 4, 6, 9 and 10Notification challenge toDelayNot properly explained effect of. HEADNOTE: Notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 was issued in respect of certain lands including the lands belonging to the appellantfoundation situated at two different places. The appellantFoundation filed objections. Subsequently notifications under Sections 6 and Notices under Sections 9 and 10 were also issued. The appellantFoundation challenged the notifications in respect of the land situated at one of the two places, by way of a Writ Petition before the High Court and the same was dismissed as withdrawn with liberty to the petitioner to agitate the matter in a suit. Thereupon, the appellantFoundation filed a suit and the same was dismissed by a Single Judge of the High Court. The Letters Patent Appeal filed against that decision is pending. In respect of the land situated at the other place, a Writ Petition was filed by the appellant before the High Court, which came to be dismissed as withdrawn. Thereafter, another Writ Petition was filed by the appellantFoundation before the High Court challenging the notifications. The High Court having dismissed the Writ Petition, the appellantFoundation preferred the present appeal. On behalf of the appellants, it was contended that they filed their objections under Section 5A of the Act, but the same were rejected without affording any opportunity of personal hearing, and the denial of such opportunity invalidated the notifications; and that the land of the appellants being wakf property it ought to have been excluded on the basis of the notification under Section 4 of the Act. Alternatively it was contended that the appellant has been running several educational institutions on the very land and that if the exemption for wakf property is not applicable to such educational and charitable institutions run by Hindus or nonMuslims, then such a notification would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. The Respondents contested the appeal on grounds of delay, laches and acquiescence in fling the Writ Petition challenging the acquisition proceedings. It was also stated that the appellants were given opportunity of personal hearing. Dismissing the appeal, this Court, HELD: 1. The conduct of the appellants in raising the plea that no opportunity of personal hearing was given to the appellants in respect of the objections filed under Section 5A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 was totally baseless and factually incorrect and such conduct is reprehensible. It is wellsettled that a person invoking an equitable extraordinary jurisdiction of the Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution is required to come with clean hands and should not conceal the material facts. [431F, G] Farid Ahmed Abdul Samad & Anr. v. Municipal Corporation of the City of Ahmedabad & Anr., [1977] 1 SCR 71, referred to. 2. The challenge to the acquisition proceedings was mainly based on the ground that in the notification dated 13.11.1959 issued under Section 4 of the Act the lands of wakf property were excluded and the lands of the appellants being also used for educational and charitable purposes the same were also liable to be excluded. At a later stage a ground was also taken that if wakf property in the aforesaid notification under Section 4 of the Act meant only wakf properties of the Mohammedans, then such notification was discriminatory and violative under Art. 14 of the Constitution as there was no reasonable ground to discriminate such properties of Hindus or nonMuslims meant for charitable purposes. Thus the challenge was in respect of notifications under Sections 4 and 6 of the Act alone and though in the prayer clause relief has been sought to quash the notification under Sections 9 and 10 of the Act also which were issued in 1972, no ground whatsoever has been pleaded in the writ petition nor raised in the present appeal as to how the notifications under Sections 9 and 10 had any concern for explaining the delay in respect of the Challenge to notification under Sections 4 and 6 of the Act, Admittedly the notices under sections 9 and 10 issued appellants in 1972 were in respect of a portion of the land. The challenge on the other Land i