By the Court.—We have heard S/Sri Ramendra Asthana and Pankaj Dubey for the petitioners in Civil Misc. Writ Petitions No. 74622 of 2010 and 74625 of 2010. Sri Jagdish Pathak appears for the petitioners of Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 74623 of 2010. Sri M.C. Tripathi, Additional Standing Counsel, appears for the State-respondent and Sri A.K. Mishra appears for the Muzaffarnagar Development Authority.

2. The petitioners in all these three writ petitions have challenged the Notification dated 6.12.2007 under Section 4(1) read with Section 17(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (in short ‘the Act’), published in the news paper on 19.12.2007, and in the locality on 18.1.2007, and the Notification dated 7.12.2010 under Section 6(1) read with Section 17(1) of the Act by which plots No. 203, 210 and 211, areas 2.9734, 1.034 and 1.577 Hectares respectively, in Writ Petition No. 74622 of 2010; plots No. 183 and 189, area 0.092 and 0.464 Hectares in Writ Petition No. 74623 of 2010; and plots No. 204, 205, 206 and 207, areas 0.082, 0.072, 0.062 and 0.062 Hectares owned by the petitioners in these writ petitions were acquired by the State Government for planned residential development scheme, to be developed by the Muzaffarnagar Development Authority, Muzaffarnagar (in short ‘MDA’)..

The acquisition of the land has been challenged on the following grounds :

(1) The village Almaspur in district Muzaffarnagar was not included in the development area of MDA under Section 3 of the U.P. Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973. It came to be included in the development area of MDA by notification dated 15.4.2008, much after the notification under Section 4 of the Act was published on 6.12.2007. The MDA was thus not authorised to prepare the plan for residential development scheme for village Almaspur, Pargana and Tehsil Muzaffarnagar, and, consequently, the land could not have been acquired for the said purpose.

(2) The Notification under Section 6(1) of the Act has been published beyond the period of one year of the publication of the notification under Section 4(1) of the Act, in violation of Explanation 1 to the second proviso to Section 6(1) of the Act.

(3) There was and could be no real urgency nor there was any material to arrive at the opinion of such urgency to acquire the land for residential development scheme, which ordinarily takes a long time and, thus, in view of Ram Dhari Jindal Memorial Trust v. Union of India and others, in Civil Appeal No. 3813 of 2007, decided by the Supreme Court on March 21, 2012 (paragraph 21), the dispensation of enquiry under Section 5A of the Act was illegal. Consequently since the petitioners were not given any opportunity of hearing, the notification under Section 4/6 are illegal, inoperative and void in law.

3. The petitioners are owners of the land situate in village Almaspur, Tehsil Sadar, District Muzaffarnagar. A Notification under Section 4 of the Act was published on 6.12.2007 invoking the provisions of Section 17(1) and (4) of the Act, dispensing with enquiry under Section 5A. The notification was challenged in Writ Petition No. 186 of 2008, which was dismissed by the High Court on 4.1.2008 on the ground that the writ petition was premature as the notification under Section 6 of the Act was not published.

4. The petitioner, Ashok Kumar, in Writ Petition No. 186 of 2008 filed Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No. 4670 of 2008, in which the Supreme Court issued notice on 3.3.2008 and directed that in the meanwhile, status quo be maintained by both the parties. The Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No. 4670 of 2008 was dismissed on 1.2.2010 with the following order :

“Heard learned counsel for the parties.

We find no merit in the Special Leave Petition.

The Special Leave Petition is dismissed accordingly.”

5. An application was filed in the Supreme Court to recall the order dated 1.2.2010. By order dated 24.9.2010, the Supreme Court has disposed of the application with the following order