Judicial review of land acquisition decisions is limited to procedural legality, irrationality, and administrative impropriety.

JUDGMENT

Mr. Kuldeep Tiwari, J.

The present review application derives its genesis from an order dated 8.3.2010, passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in SLP(C) No. 5654 of 2010, whereby, liberty was granted to the applicant to re-approach this Court for consideration of his already raised plea of discrimination by filing a review application qua the order dated 27.1.2010, passed by this Court, vide which the present writ petition was dismissed on merits. The relevant extract of the order dated 8.3.2010 passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court reads as under:-

"After arguing the case for some time, learned senior counsel for petitioner made a request that his client may be permitted to withdraw this petition with liberty to file an application for review of the order under challenge on the ground that the plea of discrimination raised by him has not been considered by the High Court. The request of the learned senior counsel is accepted and Special Leave Petition is dismissed as withdrawn with liberty in terms of the prayer made."

2. Availing the liberty (supra) the applicant/petitioner filed a review application. However, he remained unsuccessful and this Court vide order dated 9.7.2010 dismissed the review application, for its being devoid of merit. The dismissal order (supra) caused grievance to the applicant/petitioner and afforded a ground to lay challenge to the dismissal order (supra) before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. Thereafter, the Hon'ble Supreme Court again interfered with the matter and set aside the order (supra), as passed by this Court, with the following directions:-

"Though we have heard the learned counsel on both sides for some time, we are of the view that the High Court should have addressed the submissions made by the appellant in the review petition, some of which have been noted in the order dated 06.05.2011, as extracted above. Therefore, we set aside the impugned order passed by the High Court in the review petition and request the High Court to address the issues raised in the review petition regarding the availability of alternate land belonging to the Government and other public authorities and pass a speaking order in the review petition."

3. The Hon'ble Supreme Court remanded the lis to this Court for reconsideration of the plea of discrimination as well as to re-examine the issue of availability of alternate government land(s) and land(s) belonging to other public authorities, as raised by the petitioner and thereupon, to pass a speaking order.

4. Before we proceed to make the required deliberation upon the issues raised in the remanded review application and thereupon, pen down our resultant opinion for adjudication thereof, it is deemed essential to first trace the factual matrix of the present case.

Factual Matrix

5. The petitioner had earlier approached this Court by filing CWP No. 10748 of 2008 and challenged the acquisition notice dated 2.9.2005, (Annexure P/1), notice dated 22.9.2005, (Annexure P/2) as well as notification dated 15.6.2006, (Annexure P/5), issued under Sections 36 , 38 and 42 of the PUNJAB TOWN IMPROVEMENT ACT , 1922 (in short, the Act of 1922), by respondent no. 2-Improvement Trust, Faridkot. The petitioner challenged the acquisition proceedings on the ground of breach of Standing Order No. 28 dated 9.3.1985 issued by the Financial Commissioner and Secretary to Government of Punjab, Revenue Department, wherein, as per the petitioner, it was a bounden duty of the acquiring authority concerned to first evaluate the availability of other government land(s), if any, in the district which can be efficiently put to use for the apposite public purpose and only after non-availability of