Satnam Singh vs State of Punjab and another

Pritpal Singh, J.

In this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India Satnam Singh resident of village Kandial, District Gurdaspur, has sought to quash notifications Annexure P 2 and P 3 issued by the State of Punjab under section 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter referred to as `the Act'') whereby his land in village Kandial was acquired.

Factual matrix of this case is that the State of Punjab, respondent No. 1. issued notification under section 4 of the Act on February 2, 1977 (Annexure P.2) giving out intention to acquire land including that of the petitioner for allotment as housesites to landless workers in rural areas. Invoking the urgency clause under subsection (4) of section 17 of the Act, it was also mentioned in the notification that section 5A of the Act shall not apply to the proposed acquisition. This notification was followed by a notification under section 6 of the Act of the same date (Annexure P. 3). Publication under section 4(1) of the Act was made in the village on February 12, 1977. The impugned notifications have been assailed by the petitioner on two grounds. Firstly, that there was no justification to invoke section 17(4) to take away his right under section 5A of the Act to file objections. Secondly, that the delay in publication under section 4(1) invalidated the notification.

The State of Punjab did not file any return to the writ petition. The Collector, Batala, District Gurdaspur filed a written statement wherein a simple denial was pleaded to the petitioner''s allegation that there was no justification in the present case to invoke urgency clause contained in section 17(4) of the Act. No facts or particulars were stated in support of this contention. On the second point regarding delay in the publication under section 4(1) of the Act the reply given was that ten days'' time taken in the publication was quite reasonable.

As regards the first objection of the petitioner the requirement of section 17(4) of the Act was considered by the Supreme Court in Narayan Govind Gavate etc. v. State of Maharashtra and others, A.I.R. 1977 Supreme Court 183, and it was observed as follows :

"Now the purpose of Section 17(4) of the Act is obviously not merely to confine action under it to waste and arable land but also to situations in which an inquiry under Section 5A will serve no useful purpose, or, for some overriding reason, it should be dispensed with. The mind of the Officer or authority concerned has to be applied to the question whether there is an urgency of such a nature that even the summary proceedings under Section 5A of the Act should be eliminated. It is not just the existence of an urgency but the need to dispense with an inquiry under Section 5A which has to be considered."

In the instant case it has, therefore, to be inevitably considered whether there was an urgency of such a nature which required to eliminate the summary proceedings under section 5A of the Act. It cannot be disputed that in such cases the formation of an opinion is subjective of the administrative authorities because they are expected to know if actually such urgency exists which should call for the invocation of section 17(4) of the Act. Nevertheless, that opinion has to be based upon some relevant materials to satisfy the test which Courts impose. The test according to the aforesaid Supreme Court judgment is : "Was the authority concerned acting within the scope of its powers or in the sphere where its opinion and discretion must be permitted to have full play ? Once the Court comes to the conclusion that the authority concerned was acting within the scope of its powers and had some material, however, meagre, on which it could reasonably base its opinion, the Courts should not and will not interfere. There might, however, be cases in which the power is exercised in such an obviously arbitrary or perverse fashion, without regard to the actual and undeniable facts, or in other words, so unreasonably as to leave no doubt whatsoever in the mind of a Court that there has been an excess of power. There may also be cases where the mind of the authority concerned has not been applied at all, due to misunderstanding of the law or some other reason, to what was legally imperative for it to consider."

In the instant care, as mentioned earlier, the State of Punjab did not care to file any written statement and as such no facts or particulars are stated to which the mind of the authority concerned could have been applied in affirming the opinion that the situation called for declaration under section 17(4) of the Act to dispense with inquiries under section 5A of the Act. A return indeed has been filed by the Collector, respondent No. 2, but therein also no such particulars have been stated. A perusal of the notification Annexure P.2 would show that therein also no material is provided to indicate the existence of urgency to eliminate inquiries under section 5A of the Act. The purpose of acquisition of land as mentioned in the notification is allotment of housesite to the landless workers in the rural areas. This purpose is unquestionably laudable, but this in itself is not sufficient to attract section 17(4) of the Act. The notification, therefore, shows that the mind of the concerned authorities was not at all applied to the question whether the urgency is of such a nature as to require elimination of the inquiry under section 5A of the Act. I am, therefore,inclined to hold that it was not a case in which urgency clause under section 17(4) of the Act needed to be invoked because there is nothing to show that the acquisition of land was of such urgent nature which could not allow thirty days time to the landowners to file objections under section 5A of the Act. The impugned notifications are, therefore, liable to be quashed.

The second objection of the petitioner is equally forceful. A Full Bench of this Court in Rattan Singh v. The State of Punjab, 1976 P.L.J. 356, authoritatively held that " the substance of the Notification has to be published in the concerned locality simultaneously and in case it is not possible to give notice of the substance in the concerned locality simultaneously, then at least it has to be done immediately after the publication of the Notification in the Official Gazette and it would be for this State to show that whatever time was taken to give notice of the substance in the concerned locality was the minimum possible time taken for this purpose." Relying upon this judgment a Division Bench of this Court in Murari Lal Bhargava v. The State of Haryana, 1977 P.L.J. 398, quashed the notifications under sections 4 and 6 of the Act on account of six days'' unexplained delay in the publication of the substance of the notification in the locality under section 4(1) of the Act. In the present case the notification under section 4 was published in the Punjab Government Gazette on February 2, 1977. Admittedly, the publication of the substance of the notification in the locality was made 10 days thereafter on February 12, 1977. There is no adequate explanation for this delay of 10 days. The explanation given in the return of respondent No. 2 is that the gazette was received in his office on February 7, 1977 and then it took him five days more to make arrangements to make the publication in the locality. This explanation does not satisfy the ratio of Rattan Singh''s case (supra), according to which the substance of the notification has to be published in the concerned locality simultaneously or in any case immediately thereafter. It is submitted by Mr. P.S. Kang, Advocate, appearing for the respondents, that since the applicability of section 5A of the Act had been dispensed with under section 17(4) of the Act, it was unnecessary that the interested parties should have been informed of the requisite information of the acquisition proceedings immediately as they were not entitled to file objections under section 5A of the Act. A similar contention was repelled by the Supreme Court in Narinderjit Singh v. The State of U.P., A.I.R. 1973 Supreme Court 552 and it was observed as follows :

"We are unable to accept such a contention. In our judgment the provisions of Section 4(1) cannot be held to be mandatory in one situation and directory in another. Section 4(1) does not contemplate any distinction between those proceedings in which in exercise of the power under section 17(4) the appropriate Government directs that the provisions of Section 5A shall not apply and where such a direction has not been made dispensing with the applicability of Section 5A. It lays down in unequivocal and clear terms that both things have to be simultaneously done under Section 4(1), i.e., a notification has to be published in the official gazette that the land is likely to be needed for any public purpose and the Collector has to cause notice to be given of the substance of such notification at convenient places in the locality in which the land is situated.

It is thus clear that the Full Bench judgment in Rattan Singh''s case (supra) applied with full force to the present case. The respondents have failed to explain 10 days'' delay in the publication of the substance of the notification in the locality under section 4(1) of the Act. Therefore, on account of noncompliance of the mandatory requirement of section 4(1) of the Act also the impugned notification are liable to be quashed.

For the reasons aforementioned the writ petition is allowed and the notifications Annexure P. 2 and P.3 under sections 4 and 6 of the Act respectively are quashed qua the petitioner''s land.