By the Court.—The petitioners have sought the quashing of the notification dated 15 September 2014 issued under Section 3-A of the National Highways Act, 1956 ('the Act') for acquisition of 23.5008 hectares of land for building (widening/up-gradation to 4-laning, etc.) maintenance, management and operation of Allahabad to Uttar Pradesh/Madhya Pradesh Border of National Highway No. 27 in the stretch of land from km 4.285 to km 45.627 in Allahabad district as also the declaration dated 19 March 2015 made under sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section 3-D of the Act.

2. The petitioners have also sought the quashing of the notification dated 19 March 2015 issued under Section 3-A of the Act for acquisition of 16.4160 hectares of land for building (widening/up-gradation to 4-laning, etc.) maintenance, management and operation of Allahabad to Uttar Pradesh/Madhya Pradesh Border of National Highway No. 27 in the stretch of land from km 4.285 to km 45.627 in Allahabad district as also the declaration dated 22 July 2015 made under sub-sections (1) and (2) of the Act.

3. The petitioners have also sought the quashing of the orders dated 16 February 2015 and 27 June 2016 by which the objections filed by them have been rejected by the Superintending Engineer on behalf of the Director General (Road Development) & Special Secretary.

4. It is stated that in response to the notifications issued under Section 3-A of the Act, the petitioners had filed objections that the demolition of the constructions standing on the land sought to be acquired for the Highway can be avoided by having a bypass. These objections were rejected by the Competent Authority, namely the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Allahabad by order dated 16 February 2015.

5. The petitioners had earlier filed Writ C-No. 19178 of 2016 to challenge the acquisition but at the time of hearing of the petition, a prayer was made that the representation filed by the petitioners regarding the acquisition of the land by the National Highway Authority of India for widening the road should be decided. This petition was disposed of on 23 May 2016 with a direction to the Chief Engineer (National Highways) PWD, to take a decision on the representation by means of a reasoned and speaking order within four weeks.

6. The representation filed by the petitioners has been rejected by order dated 27 June 2016. The relevant portion of the order is reproduced below :

“Whereas, the Ministry has sanctioned work of four laning from Km.4.285 to Km. 44.520 of Allahabad-UP/MP Border Section of NH-27 for Rs. 774.57 Crore vide Sanction letter No. 37019/07/2013-NHDP-IVA dated 24.7.2015 based on the Detailed Project Report (DPR) prepared by the technical consultant to remove congestion and to ensure safe and smooth travel of Highway users.

Whereas, this project is being executed by the Ministry of Road, Transport & Highways through its Project Implementation Unit (PIU), Varanasi (UP) under overall control of the Chief Engineer (NHDP-IVA) of this Ministry.

Whereas, the petition submitted by the above-referred petitioners has been carefully examined in the light of Detailed Project Report (DPR) prepared by the Consultant, Right of Way (ROW) of NH, as certified by the State PWD, UP and Report of Project Director, Project Implementation Unit of this Ministry at Varanasi.

Whereas, for fixing the alignment of Project Highway, due diligence was done by the Consultant, NH Wing of the State PWD of Uttar Pradesh and Ministry officials. Based on their recommendations, alignment for the proposed 4-laning was approved.

Whereas, based on the land acquisition plan, process of land acquisition under National Highway Act, 1956 has been taken up and Special Land Acquisition Officer (Joint Organisation) Allahabad, has been appointed as Competent Authority for Land Acquisition (CALA) under Section 3(a) of the said Act.

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