Judgment

M. Jagannadha Rao, J. -Leave granted.

2. These two Civil Appeals have been filed by the Delhi administration against the judgment of the Delhi High Court in C.W.P. No. 920 of 1986 dated 17.12.1996. The respondents are the owners of an extent of about 2.50 acres in Chattrapur village. The notifications, in fact, covered land of an extent of about 50,000 Bighas in thirteen villages. The writ petition was allowed under the impugned judgment and the notifi­cations were quashed.

3. The brief facts of the case are follows:

The Notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act was issued on 25.11.1980 while the declaration under Section 6 was chal­lenged in C.W.P. No. 1639 of 1985 and 76 other writ petitions and were referred to a Full Bench of the Delhi High Court on a certain legal issue. The Full Bench decided the point and upheld the Section 6 declaration. The contention before the Full Bench was that the decla­ration under Section 6 was issued more than 3 years after the Section 4(1) notification and was, therefore, bad in law. The submission was that even though there were various stay orders in several Writ peti­tions by the High Court in relation to the operation of