ORDER

1. Special leave granted.

2. Under challenge is the order of a Division Bench of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana dismissing in limine the writ petition filed by the appellants.

3. The land in question is at Village Dundahera, District Gurgaon. The said land was proposed to be acquired by notifications issued under the provisions of Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act and Section 14 of the Haryana Urban Development Authority Act. The said land was thereafter purchased by the appellants with the intention of putting up a factory thereon. The appellants moved the 1St respondent for release of the said land to them for such purpose. On 16-10-1984 an agreement was entered into in this behalf between a Director of the appellants and the 1st respondent whereunder, in consideration of the 1st respondent agreeing to release theg said land to them, the Director of the appellants made certain promises in regard to development charges, effluent treatment and the construction plan. On 27-11-1984 the Deputy Director of Urban Estates, Haryana, wrote to the Estate Officer, Haryana Urban Development Authority, Gurgaon, on the subject of the release of the said land to the appellants. He stated that the agreement sent therewith had been accepted and it was intimated that the 1st respondent had agreed to release the said land to the appellants on the t Arising out of SLP (C) No. 13537 of 1992 conditions stipulated therein. A copy of this letter was forwarded to the appellants

4. On 15-2-1990 the said land was again proposed to be acquired by a notifications under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act and Section 14 of the HUDA Act. That notice thereof was not served upon the appellants is clear from the counter filed by the respondents in this Court, where it is stated that no notice was served upon the appellants because they were not the owners of the said land, as the relevant jamabandis showed. Not having received any notice in this behalf, the appellants could not file objections under Section 5-A of the LA Act.

5. The appellants then filed the writ petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking the setting aside of the second set of notifications and a direction that the said land should be released to them. The writ petition was summarily dismissed because the High Court did not find any legal infirmity or non-compliance of any procedural requirement.

6. Learned counsel for the appellants laid stress upon the fact that the I st respondent had itself agreed to release the land to the appellants after having entered into the aforesaid agreement with its Director. It, therefore, did not lie in the 1st respondents mouth to say that the 1st respondent was unaware of the interest of the appellants in the said land. That no notice of the proposed acquisition had been served upon the appellants after the second set of notifications was clear from the counter of the respondents.

7. Learned counsel for the respondents drew our attention to that portion of the counter of the respondents where the reason for the decision to reacquire the said land was stated. That is not something with which we are presently concerned.

8. It is an admitted position that neither before nor after the second set of notifications were the appellants informed by the 1St respondent that the release of the land in their favour was no longer operative and that the agreement between them was rescinded.

9. In the facts and circumstances of the case aforestated, we are in no doubt that the appellants were entitled to a notice subsequent to the second set of notifications to enable them to object to and be heard in the matter of the acquisition of the said land.

10. We are told that a Section 6 notification acquiring the said land has already been issued. We direct that the Section 6 notification, insofar as it relates to the said land, shall be kept in abeyance. The 1st respondent shall serve upon the appellants a notice inviting objections to the acquis