Judgment

D.P. Mohapatra , J.—Leave granted.

2. These appeals filed by the writ petitioners are directed against the judgment rendered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 13th August, 1998 in which eight writ petitions filed by the appellants and others were decided. Six out of the eight writ petition, Nos. 4955, 6036, 4091, 8059, 5994 and 5174 of 1997 were dismissed while Writ Petition Nos. 5160 and 6012 of 1997 were allowed and the notification under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short ‘the Act’), insofar as it related to the petitioners in those two cases was quashed.

3. The High Court by a separate judgment rendered on 8.4.1999 dismissed eight other similar writ petitions Nos. 16399/96, 15228, 15549 of 1997, 403, 3524, 3677, 4752 & 15511 of 1998. In another judgment rendered on 17.2.2000 the High Court dismissed the Civil Writ Petition No. 8275/1997.

4. Since the relevant facts and the grounds of challenge against the judgments are similar in all these cases they are being disposed of by this common judgment. For convenience we shall refer to the facts in the first batch of cases referred to above.

5. The State of Haryana issued the notification dated 26th May