Hon’ble Ashok Bhushan, J.—These writ petitions (except Civil Misc. Writ Petition (PIL) No. 8968 of 2008) have been filed by the farmers of district Ghaziabad, State of Uttar Pradesh challenging the acquisition of their good agricultural land by the State of Uttar Pradesh for a Company (respondent No. 2). By two successive acquisition proceedings, first by issuing notification dated 11th February, 2004 under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and second by issuing notification dated 29th August, 2006 under Section 4 of the Act, huge area of agricultural land measuring about 2500 acres was sought to be acquired for a power project to be established by the Company (respondent No. 2).

2. The above writ petitions can be categorises in four groups. The first group of writ petitions are Writ Petition No. 55578 of 2008 (Pooran and others v. State of U.P. and others) and other connected writ petitions which challenge both the acquisition proceedings, i.e., acquisition proceeding initiated by issuing notification dated 11th February, 2004 under Section 4 of the Act and the acquisition proceeding initiated by issuing notification dated 29t