By the Court.—The present writ petition arises out of land acquisition proceedings under the then provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 for the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority. The acquisition appears to have been undertaken in different phases in respect of the village in question namely village Sultanpur Pargana and Tehsil Dadri district Gautam Budh Nagar. The dispute in the present writ petition is confined to certain area alleged to have been purchased by the petitioners out of plot No. 625 of the said village.

2. The acquisition without effecting plot No. 625 was initially undertaken by the issuance of notifications under Sections 4 and 6 respectively on 2.5.2003 and 29.5.2003 for an area of about 13.5 hectares. The next phase began with the notification under Section 4 of the Act dated 19.9.2008 where also plot No. 625 was not included. The said notification under Section 4 of the Act however, did not result in a final notification but the respondent/NOIDA authority was pursuing the State Government for acquisition. The petitioners claimed that on having come to know of the said proposed acquisition proceedings, since they had already purchased the land prior to plot No. 625 being included in the acquisition proceedings, a preemptive application was filed before the Special Land Acquisition Officer on 12.2.2009 indicating that in the survey that had been carried out, the construction of the petitioners and their tenements, had not been been indicated and therefore an appropriate survey be carried out and the land purchased by them through the respective sale-deeds be excluded. The petitioners also claimed to have got their names mutated for which they have placed reliance on the relevant revenue extracts that have been filed as Annexure-32 to the impleadment and amendment applications dated 20.11.2011.

3. The petitioners contend that upon the application being moved on 12.2.2009 the Additional District Magistrate (Land Acquisition) submitted a report on 18.2.2009 about the objections raised by the petitioners and also indicated that the matter should be re-examined keeping in view the claim of the tenure holders.

4. It is urged that in spite of this report, for the first time, plot No. 625 came to be included in its entirety in a fresh notification under Section 4 of the 1894 Act published on 17.3.2009, the area being 8280 sq. mtrs. This was followed by a notification under Section 6 of the Act dated 31.7.2009 read with Section 17 of the Act. The urgency clause had been invoked and the hearing proceedings under Section 5-A had been dispensed with.

5. According to the respondents notices were issued on 15.9.2009 under Section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act. The counter-affidavit of the respondent No. 3 Development Authority dated 31.1.2012 in paragraph No. 26 has asserted that there were no constructions of the petitioners either in 2007 or any time thereafter nor had they placed any documents to evidence the same. The notices under Section 9 of the Act had been sent to the land owners including the present petitioners and a copy of the said notice has been filed as Annexure-CA-6 to the said counter-affidavit, but according to the authority none of the petitioners were found at the spot and a report was submitted on the notice that the addressees were not residents of the area and are residing either in NOIDA, Delhi or Ghaziabad.

6. The petitioners have then alleged that they made a second request to the Additional District Magistrate to exclude the land of the petitioners from the acquisition proceedings. They have also alleged that the said land has been acquired and is being handed over to private companies for construction of multistoreyed building and farm houses. It is thus clear that the petitioners were fully aware of the proceedings and the very caption of their letter which has been filed as Annexure-16 to the writ petition indicates that the request was being made prior to the issuance of th