The court held that statutory inquiry under Section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act cannot be bypassed unless genuine urgency exists, emphasizing landowners' rights to object to acquisition.

JUDGMENT :

Manoj Kumar Gupta, J.

INTRODUCTION

1. The present batch of writ petitions, filed under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeks to question the validity of the notifications dated 16 October, 2004 under Section 4 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act, 1894' or ‘the Act’) and dated 28 November, 2005 under Section 6 (1) of the Act, 1894 proposing to acquire 367-0-5 bighas (229.3828 acres) of land of Village Mohiddinpur Kanavani, Pargana Loni, District Ghaziabad for a public purpose, viz. 'construction of residential colony under planned development scheme' by the Ghaziabad Development Authority, Ghaziabad (hereinafter referred to as 'GDA'). While issuing the notification under Section 4 dated 16 October, 2004, the power conferred upon the State Government under Section 17 (4) has been invoked, thereby dispensing with the enquiry contemplated under Section 5-A of the Act, 1894. Likewise, while issuing notification dated 28.11.2005 under Section 6 of the Act, 1894, the power under Section 17 (1) of the Act, 1894 has been invoked, empowering the Collector to take possession of the acquired land after expiration of 15 days from the date of publication of notice under Section 9(1), though, no award under Section 11 has been made.

2. A Division Bench of this Court by judgment dated 09.09.2016 allowed first set of 30 writ petitions, leading one being Writ-C No.4986 (Hatam Singh and others vs. State of U.P. and another) and quashed the acquisition notifications dated 16 October 2004 and 28 November 2005 in respect of the land of the petitioners. Another set of four writ petitions was decided by judgment dated 30.09.2016 by the same Division Bench in terms of its previous judgement dated 09.09.2016 in the case of Hatam Singh and others Vs. State of U.P. and other connected matters. Ghaziabad Development Authority, Ghaziabad challenged the aforesaid judgements dated 09.09.2016 and 30.09.2016 of the Division Bench of this Court by filing 34 special leave petitions, out of which 33 were decided by the Supreme Court vide judgement dated 31.10.2017 (Civil Appeal No. 18273 of 2017: GDA Vs. Rattan Singh and other connected appeals), whereby, the matter was remitted for a fresh consideration by this Court. One remaining SLP No. 3426 of 2016 arising out of judgement of the Division Bench of this Court dated 09.09.2016 in leading Writ Petition No. 4986 of 2005 (Hatam Singh and others Vs. State of U.P. and another) came to be decided by judgement dated 08.10.2018 in terms of the previous judgement dated 31.10.2017 in Civil Appeal No. 18273 of 2017 and other connected matters and the case was remitted back to this Court on the same issues.

3. The Supreme Court has found that certain documents placed before it for the first time, which go to the root of the matter, require consideration by this Court. Accordingly, GDA has been permitted to place on record before this Court the documents it sought to rely upon before the Supreme Court for the first time, and the petitioners have been permitted to file rejoinder affidavit in reply, with a direction to this Court to take into consideration the pleadings and documents, along with other material already on record, for deciding the following issues:

(a) Whether, regional plan, sub-regional plan and master plan were approved by the competent authority under provisions of National Capital Region Planning Board Act. 1985 (in short NCRPB Act).

(b) Whether, inquiry under Section 5-A of Land Acquisition Act, 1894 was rightly dispensed with.

4. In pursuance of liberty granted by Supreme Court to the parties, they have filed various affidavits, and thereafter, the writ petitions were taken up for hearing.

5. Before we proceed to state the facts of the case, we consider it apposite to summarise the findings returned by the Division Bench in the judgement dated 09.09.2016, the grounds on which the matter has been remitted back, and the issues which have to be considered afresh, b