1. Invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, in this batch of writ petitions, the writ petitioners in respective petitions have called in question the preliminary notification issued by the appropriate Government under Section 11 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (for short, 'the Act of 2013') along with land acquisition proceedings initiated therein impugning the same as unsustainable and bad in law.

2. Essential facts requisite to judge legality, validity and correctness of the impugned notification are as under: -

(Facts in W.P.(C)No.1945/2015, which is the lead case, are taken)

3. Arpa Bhaisajhar Barrage Project at Village Hirri, Tahsil Bilha, Distt. Bilaspur is one of the ambitious projects of the State Government for providing irrigation facilities to 102 villages of Bilaspur District which is being constructed by investing 606.43 crores and proposed to irrigate 25,000 hectares of land. In order to implement the said project, number of prelim