ORDER

An interesting question of law has been raised in this case. Notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (1 of 1894) (for short, the Act ) was published in the State Gazette on September 24, 1981 acquiring an extent of 137 acres of land for housing scheme of the appellant. We are concerned with 2 acres 28 gunthas of land belonging to the respondent Nos. 3 to 7 in this appeal. The objections under Section 5-A of the Act were filed by the respondents on November 12, 1981. He appeared through counsel on November 21, 1981 and sought further time to file further objections. The matter was posted for November 25, 1981. He filed a memo stating that the additional objections already filed on November 12, 1981 would be treated as on record and sought time for hearing and accordingly the matter was posted for November 30, 1981 on which date the respondent appeared neither in person nor through counsel. The Land Acquisition Officer, therefore, considered the objections and submitted his report to the Government for consideration by his proceedings dated January 12, 1982. The Government after considering the objections and the report and on rejection thereof published the declaration under Section 6(1) in the Gazette on October 28, 1982. Thereafter, the respondents filed Writ Petition No. 43227/82 sometime in October 1982. The High Court directed stay of further proceedings. The High Court in the impugned judgment dated May 27, 1987 held that the enquiry under Section 5-A was vitiated on account of failure to give opportunity of hearing to the respondents on the objections. Since the writ petition came to be filed after the declaration under Section 6 was published, Explanation 1 to 6 is not attracted; the Explanation postulates exclusion of the time taken in pursuance of the notification under Section 4(1). Since stay of further proceedings of the declaration under Section 6 was granted, the Explanation 1 to 6 is inapplicable. Therefore, the time taken during the pendency of the proceedings cannot be excluded in computing the period of three years as envisaged in the first proviso to sub-section (1) of Section 6. Therefore, the declaration under Section 6 and the notification under Section 4 have elapsed. Thus, this appeal by special leave. Though the respondents have been served, none is appearing either in person or through counsel. We requested Sri Juneja, who is well experienced in this branch of law, to assist as amicus.

2. Shri Nagaraja, learned counsel for the appellant, contended that the view taken by the High Court is not valid in law. The language of the Explanation that period during which any action or proceedings taken in pursuance of the notification under Section 4(1) is stayed by an order of the Court requires to be construed to mean that all steps taken from the stage of issuance of the notification under Section 4(1) should be understood meaningfully . If the Explanation would be construed strictly to mean that after the notification was published but before the declaration under Section 6 was published, the steps taken in pursuance of sub-section (1) of Section 6 only were stayed and were to be excluded, the operational efficiency would be in jeopardy. The stay of the further proceedings, therefore, should include all steps to be taken after the notification under Section 4(1) is published including the declaration under Section 6 which are necessarily to be excluded. Otherwise, an interested person would wait for publication of declaration under Section 6 and then only would impugn the validity of declaration without challenging Section 4(1) and get further proceedings stayed and on expiry of three years even if the writ petition is dismissed or withdrawn, no further steps could be taken since three years from that date stood expired and resultantly notification under Section 4 and declaration under Section 6(1) would stand lapsed. Such an interpretation would be in the