SATISH CHANDRA, J. :- These three special appeals raise common questions. They are directed against a common judgment dismissing three writ petitions. In the writ petitions, the appellants had challenged the acquisition of land in execution of improvement schemes framed by the Meerut Improvement Trust and continued by the Avas Evam Vikas Parishad.

2. An improvement scheme called "Scheme No. 3 - Housing Accommodation and Street Scheme lying between Meerut Garhmukteshwar and Meerut Hapur Roads" was framed by the Meerut Improvement Trust. Notice of this scheme as required by Section 36 of the U. P. Town Improvement Act, 1919 was published in the State Gazette of 7th January, 1967. The area comprised in the scheme included land in four villages, all situate outside the municipal limits of Meerut. The notice invited objections. Ninety nine persons filed fortyfive objections. The Chairman of the Improvement Trust visited the area involved in the scheme and heard oral representations from various groups of landholders in the area. The appellants' case is that they had no knowledge of these proceeding and they could not either file objections or make representations to the Chairman at the time of his visit.

3. By a Notification of 7-12-1967 the State Government extended the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Avas Evam Vikas Parishad Adhiniyam, No. 1 of 1966 (which we shall call the Parishad Act) to the areas which were till then under the jurisdiction of the Improvement Trust, Meerut. As a result of this Notification the Town Improvement Act stood repealed in respect to its application to this area (vide Section 96 (1) of the Parishad Act). Under Section 97 of the Parishad Act the improvement schemes pending before the Improvement Trust, stood transferred to the U. P. Avas Evam Vikash Parishad, (hereinafter called the Parishad) constituted under the Parishad Act. The Parishad was to proceed further with the schemes or their execution from the stage at which it stood transferred to it.

4. The Parishad took up the Housing Accommodation and Street Scheme No. 3; it disposed of the objections, and as required by Section 31 (1), referred the scheme to the State Government for sanction. The State Government sanctioned the Scheme and the sanction was published in the Gazette of 23rd November, 1968, in accordance with Section 32 (1) of the Parishad Act.

5. In pursuance to Section 55 (1) of the Parishad Act the Parishad commenced proceedings for the acquisition of land required for the execution of this scheme. Notice under Section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act was published on 18th November, 1969. At this stage the appellants instituted writ petitions. They challenged the validity of the acquisition proceedings on several grounds which, however, failed and the writ petitions were dismissed by the judgment under appeal.

6. Learned counsel for the appellants pressed before us three points :-

(1) The Notification of the scheme did not comply with the requirements of Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act.

(2) Section 38 of the Town Improvement Act violated Article 14 of the Constitution; it being non-severable, the provisions of the Town Improvement Act as a whole were void.

(3) An incomplete scheme framed by the Improvement Trust could not validly be transferred to the Parishad.

7. Section 56 of the Town Improvement Act provides that the Improvement Trust may acquire land required for carrying on any of the purposes of the Act under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 as modified under Section 58 and by the Schedule to that Act. Clause 2 of the Schedule provides that the first publication of a notice of an improvement scheme under Section 36 of the Act shall be substituted for and have the same effect as publication of a Notification under Section 4 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act.

8. Section 55 of the Parishad Act similarly provides that any land required for the purposes of this Act may be acquired under the provisions of the L