Civil Writ Petition No.5975 of 1988

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH

Date of Decision: 12.05.2011

Hukam Singh & anr.

....petitioners

Versus

The Union of India & anr.

.....respondents

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE JASBIR SINGH

HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RAKESH KUMAR GARG

1.Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement?

2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?

3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?

Present:

Mr.A.C.Jain, Advocate

for the petitioners

Ms.Anjali Kukkar, Advocate

for Union of India

Mr.Kamal Sehgal, Additional Advocate General, Haryana

***

RAKESH KUMAR GARG J.:

By way of present writ petition, challenge has been laid to

the notice/notification dated 04.06.1985(Annexure P-3), whereby land

measuring 15 bighas 6 biswas(76K-10M) including the land of the

petitioners measuring 3 bighas 12 biswas had been acquired under Section

7(1) of the Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1952

(in short 'the Act'), with a prayer to quash the aforesaid notice/notification.

As per the averments made in the writ petition, the

petitioners are owners of khasra No.5566/2018 measuring 3 bighas 12

Civil Writ Petition No.5975 of 1988

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biswas in the revenue estate of village Gurgaon. Said land of the

petitioners was requisitioned by the Government in the year 1946 under the

provisions of the Act. According to the petitioners, thereafter, respondents

had put up a boundary wall on the said area. Adjoining the boundary wall,

is the land owned by the petitioners and other land owners. Admittedly,

the land of the petitioners was not de-requisitioned although some of the

land was released from requisition by the respondents vide Annexure P -2.

However, according to the petitioners, the land in dispute was never in the

use of the military authorities and in fact the petitioners and other

landowners were in possession thereof, since long, and they had been

using that land for their own purposes and for raising crops etc.

It is the further case of the petitioners that their land has

been acquired vide impugned notification under Section 7(1) of the Act in

violation of the provisions of Section 7(3) of the aforesaid Act, as no

construction has been made by the respondents over their requisitioned

land and, thus, the acquisition proceedings being bad in law, notification

Annexure P-3 is liable to be quashed. Learned counsel for the petitioners

has relied upon AIR 1989 Delhi 116 Brij Narain vs.Union of India and

etc. to contend that the power of acquisition of a requisitioned property is

conditional on the existence of the circumstances enumerated therein. It is

not a general power of acquisition for a public purpose. If the public

purpose exists on account of circumstances outside sub-Section(3) of

Sec.7 of 1952 Act, then one has necessarily to resort to the Land

Acquisition Act, 1894.

Learned counsel for the petitioners has further argued that

since the requisitioned land was not used, it must be held that the purpose

for which the property was requisitioned ceased to exist and the owner had

acquired a right to be put in possession thereof under the proviso to

Section 6 of the Act.

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In support of his case, learned counsel has also relied

upon AIR 1962 Supreme Court 247 The Union of India and anr.vs.Ram

Kanwar & Ors.

The writ petition has been contested by the respondents,

inter alia submitting in the written statement that the entire land was under

occupation of Air Force since 1946 onwards and was never under

cultivation by the petitioners and they had raised MES assets on it as per

Annexure R-4 and, thus, the notification under challenge has been issued

in accordance with law and the writ petition is liable to be dismissed.

On July 19, 1988, after noticing the contention raised by

learned counsel for the petitioners following