The notification under the Land Acquisition Act is unassailable once the award is passed, and the land acquired for a particular purpose can be diverted to another public purpose.

Dipak Misra, J.—Invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court the Petitioners have prayed for issue of a Writ of Certiorari for quashment of the notifications dated 23-11-1962 and 11-1-1963. Annexures P/1 and P/2 respectively and further to quash the award dated 3-11-1963, Annexure P/5, as far as it relates to the disputed lands in question. A further prayer has also been made seeking declaration that the disputed land which has remained in possession of the Petitioners would remain in their possession, as they are entitled to retain the same.

2. The facts as have been exposited in the writ petition are that the lands situate in Khasra Nos. 949, 1641/948, 948 admeasuring 9.01 acres in the city of Bhopal and Khasra Nos. 33, 41/1, 41/2, admeasuring 18.66 acres situate in Village, Govindpura in the District of Bhopal, belong to the Petitioners. Along with the aforesaid lands a total area admeasuring 112.55 acres of land was sought to be acquired by the State Government for establishment of an industrial workers colony. It is put forth that Late Govardhan, the predecessor in interest of the Petitioners was the original Bhumiswami, who died in the year 1939. He left behind two sons, namely, Hariram and Ramprasad. The Petitioners claim their title through the said Hariram. According to the writ Petitioners the employees of the M.P. Housing Board tried to disturb in their possession on 5-11-1979 and at that time they came to know that some land acquisition proceedings were initiated in respect of their lands. It is pleaded in the petition that the Respondent. No. 1 had issued a notification u/s 4(1) read with Section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for brevity 'the Act') which was published in the M.P. Rajpatra, dated 23-11-1962 and subsequently a notification u/s 6 of the Act was published on 11-1-1963. The said notifications have been brought on record as Annexures P/1 and P/2. The said notifications were challenged in Civil Suit Nos. 5-A/80 and 44-A/82 by certain other persons who were affected by the said notifications. The Civil Court by its judgment released the lands of the Plaintiffs in those suits from the sphere of acquisition, on the ground that there existed no emergency and the circumstances did not warrant dispensation of hearing as contemplated u/s 5-A of the Act. It is set forth that the lands admeasuring 56.03 acres belonging to Machhi Singh and the land admeasuring 18.86 acres belonging to Biharilal were taken out of the notifications by virtue of the judgment passed by the Civil Court. Thus, out of the total land which was sought to be acquired only 38.66 acres was left out because no civil suit was filed. The Petitioners filed Civil Suit No. 56-A/99 on 8-11-1979 claiming that cause of action had arisen on 5-11-1979 when the employees of the M.P. Housing Board had taken steps to interfere over their possession. It has also been put forth that in the award passed by the Land Acquisition Officer in paragraph No. 12 it has been mentioned that the original Bhumiswami, Hariram had not appeared before the Land Acquisition Officer. A copy of the award has been brought on record as Annexure P/5. Lands were acquired in the year 1963 for construction of an industrial housing colony for B.H.E.L. workers, but no colony was ever established. But after a lapse of 14 years the State Government by order dated 15-6-1977 allotted 87.95 acres of land in favour of the M.P. Housing Board. It has been put forth that actual physical possession has been taken over by the said Board but only possession has been taken on papers. It is stated that the civil suit filed by the Petitioners remained pending for a long time because of the temporary injunction passed by the trial Judge and the Petitioners remained in possession. Certain documents have been brought on record to show physical possession of the Petitioners. The civil suit filed by the Petitioners was dismissed on the ground that the Civil Court has no jurisdiction t