JUDGMENT

VIKRAMAJIT SEN, J.

1. The Appeal before us involves an acquisition of land under Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (L.A. Act for brevity). The Respondent State initiated acquisition proceedings in 1981 by Notifications under Section 4 and Section 6 of the L.A. Act, both dated 25.3.1981, invoking the urgency provisions contained in Section 17. The operation of Section 5A was simultaneously made inapplicable by resorting to Section 17(4). Possession of the land was taken by the Respondent State after almost five months on 20.8.1981. The land has subsequently been declared to be a ‘Protected Forest’ as envisaged in Section 29 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 as per Notification dated 4.9.1990. Thereafter, proceedings were once again initiated by the Respondent State vide another Section 4 Notification dated 24.5.1995. This was followed by a Notification dated 17.8.1996 issued under the urgency provisions of Section 17, whereby Section 5A was yet again dispensed with. The Appellant landowner challenged these proceedings by way of a writ petition. The High Court found that since the same land for which acquisition proceedings had initially commenced invoking the eme