S. Ravindra Bhat, J.

( 1 ) THE petitioners here question under Article 226 of the constitution of India the validity of acquisition proceedings initiated in the year 1980, which culminated in a declaration under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereafter "the Act") on the grounds that the same are beyond the time prescribed.

( 2 ) TWO notifications were issued under Section 4 of the Act; one on 5. 11. 1980 and the other on 25. 11. 1980. In the first notification the Government proposed acquisition of areas in the villages of Tughlakabad, Tigri, Deoli, Khanpur, Said-ul-Ajaib, Neb Sarai, hauz Rani and Khirki. The subsequent notification proposed acquisition of the entire lands situated in the revenue estates of the villages Chhatterpur, Satbari, Maidan Garhi, shayur Pur and Rajpur Khurd. The declarations in respect of these notifications, were made under Section 6 on different dates, namely, 27. 5. 1985, 6. 6. 1985, 7. 6. 1985 and 26. 2. 1986. The question raised in these petitions is that those declarations, are beyond the period of three years prescribed in that regard under Section 6 of the Act. None of the petitioners filed objections under Section 5-A of the Act.

( 3 ) DURING the interregnum period between the publication of the notification under Section 4 and declaration under Section 6, many Writ Petitions had been filed before the Court on the ground that the acquisitions were bad as hearing under Section 5-A had not been given to the landowners. When those proceedings were pending, certain interim orders had been made.

( 4 ) THE effect of the interim orders made during the course of writ petitions and the question as to whether declaration under Section 6 was made beyond the time prescribed in terms of Section 6 of the Act was considered by a Full Bench of this Court in Balak Ram gupta v. Union of India, AIR 1987 Del 239 (FB) ( hereafter "balak Rain-1" ). That decision dealt with all the notifications concerned including those arising for our consideration. The context, or the occasion for the reference to the Full Bench was a divergence in opinion; one Bench taking the view that the acquisitions were beyond time and the other that the acquisitions were within the time prescribed by law.

( 5 ) THE Full Bench in its judgment considered different situations that would lead to passing of interim orders or stay orders. In the light of those, it considered the impact or scope of Explanation 1 to the first proviso to Section 6 (1) (hereafter called "the explanation") and held as follows:

"30. Secondly, the nature of proceed ings in which stay orders are obtained are also very different from the old pattern of suits confined to parties in their scope and effect. Section 4 notifications are challenged in writ petitions and it is now settled law that in this type of proceeding, the principle of locus standistands considerably diluted. Any public spirited person can challenge the validity of proceedings of acquisition on general grounds and when he does this the litigation is not inter paries simpliciter : it is a public interest litigation which affects wider interests the grounds of challenge to the notification may be nothing personal to the particular landholder but are, more often than not, grounds common to all or substantial blocks of the land owners. In fact, this group of petitions now listed before us raise practically the same contentions just as the previous batch of writ petitions challenging the notifications under Section 4 raised certain common contentions. To accept the contention that the challenges and interim orders in such petitions should be confined to the particular petitioners and their lands would virtually provide persons with common interests with a second innings. If the initial challenge succeeds, all of them benefit; and, if for some reason that fails and the second challenge succeeds on a ground like the one presently raised, the first batch of petitioners also get indirectly benefited

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