J. B. MEHTA, N. M. MIABHOY, J.

( 1 ) THIS is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India challenging two notifications under the Land Acquisition Act (hereafter called the Act) to be presently mentioned. Petitioners are owners of two fields bearing survey numbers 1025/1 and 1025/2 situated at Balasinor District Kaira. First respondent is the State of Gujarat. It published on 15th February 1962 a notification dated 1st February 1962 under sec. 4 of the Act stating that the above lands were likely to be needed for a public purpose namely for establishing a market yard for the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Balasinor. After the objections under sec. 5a of the Act were decided first respondent published on 4th October 1962 a notification dated 20th September 1962 under sec. 6 of the Act declaring that the above two fields were needed for establishing market yard for the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Balasinor. Petitioners thereafter filed the present petition on 31st October 1962 praying that the two notifications aforesaid be quashed and that the Prant Officer Anand who was appointed as the Special Land Acquisition Officer for the purposes of the aforesaid acquisition be restrained by an order of this Court from taking any proceedings under the two notifications. The petition is based mainly on two grounds. The first ground is that the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Balasinor (hereafter called the Market Committee) for which acquisition is being made has not been legally constituted. The second ground is that in any case the acquisition i bad because the proviso to sec. 6 of the Act is not satisfied on the facts of the present case. In the second notification dated 4th October 1962 it has been stated that the lands are needed to be acquired at the expense of a local body. It is common ground that the local body referred to in this notification is the Market Committee. Sec. 6 (1) of the Act says that when the appropriate Government is satisfied that any particular land is needed for a public purpose a declaration shall be made to that effect under the signature of a Secretary to such Government or of some officer duly authorised to certify its orders. It is common ground that the impugned acquisition is for a public purpose. The proviso to sub-sec. (1) of sec. 6 on which the second objection is based runs as follows:provided that no such declaration shall be made unless the compensation to be awarded for such property is to be paid wholly or partly out of public revenues or some fund controlled or managed by a local authority. One of the contentions which has been raised by respondents is that in the present case respondent No. 1 had made a contribution of Re. 1/- from out of public revenues and therefore the above proviso is satisfied. After some discussion on this aspect of the matter the learned acting Advocate General gave up this contention of respondents. Therefore for the purposes of the present petition the second objection has to be dealt with on the footing that no contribution is to come out from the public revenues. Therefore it is common ground that in order that the acquisition may be valid it is necessary that the contribution should be from as the proviso states some fund controlled or managed by a local authority. The second objection of petitioners is that the Market Committee is not a local authority within the meaning of the above proviso and therefore the acquisition is bad and void. On the other hand respondents contend that the Market Committee is such a local authority and therefore the proviso aforesaid is satisfied.

( 2 ) MR. Vakil learned counsel for petitioners after formulating the first objection and arguing it for some time distinctly gage the same up and said that be was not in a position tpress the same. Therefore then only point which arises for decision in the present petition and on which the fact of this petition depends is whether the Market Committee is a lo

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