By the Court.—The petitioner has questioned the validity of the acquisition proceedings initiated by the respondents for the acquisition of land of Plot No. 198, Area 0.101 Hectare, situate in village-Khanpur, Pargana Dankaur, Tehsil Sadar, Gautam Budh Nagar, which has been acquired by the respondents for planned industrial development under the provisions of Section 4 read with Section 17 and Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

2. We have heard Sri Shashi Nandan, learned Senior Counsel, assisted by Rajesh Kumar, for the petitioner, learned Standing Counsel Sri Neeraj Upadhyay for the Respondent Nos. 1, 2 and 7 and Sri Pradeep Kumar for the Respondent Nos. 3 to 6.

3. A short-counter-affidavit has been filed on behalf of Respondent Nos. 3 to 6 and in view of the issues raised in the petition, the Court had summoned the original records which have been tendered before the Court by the learned Standing Counsel and have been perused by us. It has been urged by all the learned Counsels that in view of the arguments advanced and the records that are already available, there would be no necessity for inviting any further Affidavits and, therefore, we are proceeding to dispose of the matter finally with the consent of parties.

4. The facts, which have led to the filing of this writ petition, lie in a very narrow compass. Briefly stated, the Notification under Section 4 of the Act was issued on 31.1.2008 which was published in newspapers on 8.2.2008. This notification contains recital of invoking of the provisions of Section 17 (1) and 17 (4) of the Land Acquisition Act thereby dispensing with the inquiry under Section 5-A. The notification under Section 6 was issued after 6 months on 30.6.2008 which was published in the newspapers on 12.7.2008. This was followed by a Section 9 Notice on 25.7.2008. It is undisputed that the land falls within the notified area of Greater NOIDA and the land was sought to be acquired for the purposes of planned Industrial Development.

5. The petitioner has alleged that he has moved representations before the respondents for excluding the land from acquisition as there are constructions standing thereon which were made way back in the year 1990. It is, however, pleaded that nothing has been done by the respondents nor any response shown to the said representation. The petitioner pleads that the land, being part of Abadi, could not have been acquired and that the same has been done with a mala fide intention. It is urged that the preliminary survey of the area was conducted in December 2004 and, as such, the invoking of the urgency clause was a colourable exercise of power. It has been further pleaded that the gap of 6 months between the notification under Sections 4 and 6 also indicates that there was no urgency and as a matter of fact there was no material on the basis of which an opinion could be formed for invoking the urgency clause.

6. On the strength of the aforesaid pleadings Sri Shashi Nandan has advanced his submissions urging that keeping in view the nature of the expropriatory legislation, the provisions of the Act should be strictly construed and that the dispensation of an inquiry under Section 5-A should not be resorted to arbitrarily. He has further submitted that there has to be an existence of material not only with regard to the existence of mere urgency or unforeseen emergency, but there should be a further existence of the need to dispense with the inquiry under Section 5-A while invoking Section 17 (4) of the Land Acquisition Act. He contends that a mere existence of urgency or an unforeseen emergency as contemplated under Section 17 (1) and 17 (2) of the Act would by itself not be sufficient to automatically dispense with the provisions of Section 5-A. He has invited the attention of the Court to paras 21 to 24 of the writ petition, wherein the petitioner has clearly urged that there was absolutely no application of mind by the State Government nor any satisfaction recorde