The main legal point established in the judgment is the validity of the acquisition proceedings under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, focusing on the lapse of the notification, the time limit for making the award, and the serving of notice under Section 9.

P.G. Agarwal, J.

1. This Writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution has been instituted by S.B. Housing Co-operative Society Ltd., hereinafter referred to as 'the Society', challenging the various Notifications issued in respect of acquisition of land in Land Acquisition Case No. 10/94.

2. The case of the Petitioner is that it is a registered Co-operative Society, registered under the Co-operative Societies Act and the Society owned and possessed a plot of land measuring 4B 11 Ls, covered by Dag No. 19 and 20, of K.P. Patta No. 62, situated at Village Dispur, under Beltola Mouza, hereinafter called as 'the A/L'. The Society in a resolution dated 19.10.85 allotted the A/L to four persons, namely, Sri Rameswarlal Deorah. Respondent No. 8, Smt. Mahadevi Deorah, Respondent No. 9, Miss Kavita Deorah, Respondent No. 10 and Miss Kalpana Deorah, Respondent No. 11 and the said resolution of the society was approved by the Assistant Registrar of Co-operative societies. There were certain litigations between the allottees and the Society and the matter came up before this Court also in C.R. 2197/1982/ 2002 as well as in Writ Appeal No. 192/83. The further case of the writ Petitioner is that in respect of allotments no registered sale deeds were executed in favour of the above four allottees and the Petitioner society did not receive any consideration money and they are paying the land revenue regularly.

3. It may be mentioned here that alongwith the Respondent No. 8 was duly served, he has not come forward to contest the present writ petition; whereas, the Respondent No. 9. 10 and 11 have filed a written statement stating, inter alia, that out of the 4 B 11 Ls of land, 4 Kathas of land was sold to one Smt. Kusum Tibrewal, who was later on impleaded as Respondent No. 12, at her own instance and the remaining 3 B 1K 11 Ls. was allotted and sold to Respondent No. 8 to 11 @ 23000/- per Katha and the said allotment was approved in the Annual General Meeting of the Society and subsequently by the Asst. Registrar of Co-operative Societies. The above Respondents further claimed that the said allotment attained finality and that cannot be challenged in the present Writ petition. The Respondent, however, stated that though the sale deeds were executed but they could not be registered as the Sub-Registrar demanded Stamp duty on such sale deeds, whereas, according to them, no stamp duty is leviable. The Respondents claimed that possession of the land allotted to them was taken over by them on payment of necessary consideration money to the Society, as such, in their balance sheet for subsequent years, i.e. for the year 1989 and 1991, the A/L has not been shown as the property of the society in their audited balance-sheet.

4. After filing of the present Writ petition Smt. Kusum Tibrewal filed an application before this Court for impleading her as party Respondents and after hearing both sides, this Court allowed the application and she was arrayed as Respondent No. 12. She has filed a written statement stating, inter alia, that the writ petition has been filed suppressing the materials facts and intentionally excluding her name although she is an interested party. Further case of Respondent No. 12 is that she had purchased 4 Kathas of land from the Society by two registered sale deeds on payment of the consideration money on 16.10.84 and thus she became the absolute owner of 4 Kathas of land in Dag No. 116 and Dag No. 19 of K.P. Patta No. 4 and 62 of village Dispur, Mouza Beltola. The Petitioner Society also confirmed the sale of 4K of land to Respondent No. 12 and accordingly the said land was mutated in her name. The Respondent has also admitted receipt of notices from the State Govt. as regards acquisition of land and she did not raise any objection in respect of acquisition of 3K 16L of land owned by her and she has also received a part of the compensation. It is, therefore, submitted that the Writ Petitioner has no locus to challeng