Judgment

DESAI, J.:- Respondent, Raja Ram Jaiswal moved Civil Miscellaneous Writ Petition No. 3174 of 1975 under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad questioning the validity of the Notification dated February 6, 1975 issued under Sec. 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act (Act for short) as also a notice dated March 6, 1975 served upon him pursuant to the aforementioned notification The impugned notification was published in the U. P. Government Gazette dated February 15, 1975. By this impugned notification, land bearing Plot No. 62 approximately admeasuring 8265 sq. yds. was sought to be acquired as being needed for a public purpose namely for extension of Hindi Sangrahalaya of the Hindi Sahitya Sammellan Prayag. A substance of this notification was published in the locality where the land sought to be acquired is situate. On March. 22, 1975, a corrigendum dated March 13, 1.975 was published by which the impugned notification dated February 15, 1975 was to stand corrected by reading Plot No 26 instead of 62 and the area sought to be acquired to be read as 2865 sq. yds. instead of 8265 sq. yds. After the publication of the corrigendum the petitioner sought amendment of the petition which was granted. Validity of the amended notification was challenged on diverse grounds. However, at the hearing of the petition, the challenge was confined to the following four grounds as summarised in the judgment of the High Court. They may be extracted

"1. Notification dated 6-2-75 issued under S. 4 of the Land Acquisition Act is invalid inasmuch as it had been issued without first complying with the provisions of rule 4 of the Land Acquisition (Companies) Rules, 1963.

2. Acquisition proceedings are mala fide.

3. Notice under S. 4(1) of the Act was served upon the petitioner on 6th March, 1975 when only two days time was left for filing objections under S. 5A of the Land Acquisition Act. This rendered the proceedings illegal.

4. The notification under S. 4(1) did not relate to plot No. 26 belonging to the petitioner. Proceedings to acquire the said plot are therefore without jurisdiction."

After the petition was amended two additional grounds of challenge were pressed on behalf of the respondent. They are :

"1. The notification dated 13th March, 1975 is invalid for the very same reason for which the notification dated 6th February, 1973 is claimed to be invalid.

2. The Land Acquisition proceedings are invalid inasmuch as the notification dated 13th March, 1975 was neither published nor was its substance notified in the locality, as also because no notice thereof had been served upon the petitioner."

Negativing all the challenges except the one that as there was failure to cause public notice of the substance of notification under S. 4(l.) to be published at convenient place in the locality on this short ground, the impugned notification was quashed. Hence this appeal by the Collector, Allahabad, and the Land Acquisition Officer by special leave.

2. Respondent who was the original, petitioner but is the respondent in the appeal filed by the Collector will be referred to as the petitioner in this judgment.

3. Petitioner filed Special Leave Petition No. 9019 of 1980 against the same judgment contending that the High Court committed an error in rejecting the challenge to the validity of the impugned notification on the ground of legal mala fides as also on the ground of non-compliance with R. 4 of the Land Acquisition (Companies) Rules. 1963.

4. As both these matters arise out of the same judgment, they were heard together and are being disposed of by a common judgment. It may be mentioned that connected Civil Appeal No. 2437 of 1981 was to be taken up for hearing after the hearing concluded in the present appeal and, therefore., the judgment in this matter was postponed because the observations in one, were likely to have some impact on the disposal on merits of the contentions in the cognate appeal. Though very much delayed