R.M. Lodha, J.
1. Rule, returnable forthwith, Mr. D.N. Kukday, Government Pleader waives service on behalf of the respondents. Heard the counsel by consent finally at this stage.
2. A notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 dated 3-11-1992 issued by the Commissioner, Nagpur Division, Nagpur was published in the Official Gazette on 26-11-1992, specifying the lands mentioned in schedule including land comprising of Survey No. 59, admeasuring 1 hector and 56 Rs. stating therein that the land mentioned was needed or likely to be needed for the public purpose, viz. research and development area of the Defence Department. It was further stated in the notification that the Government of India by notification dated 23-4-1996 issued under Clause (1) of Article 258 of the Constitution of India, has empowered the Divisional Commissioners in the State of Maharashtra, to discharge the functions of the Central Government under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 in relation to acquisition of the land for the purposes of Union within the territories of the State. In the notification, it was mentioned that the Commissioner was of opinion that the said land was urgently necessary to be acquired and accordingly, directed acquisition of the said land under sub-section (4) of section 17 of the Land Acquisition Act and provision of section 5-A of the said Act was dispensed with. By the said notification, the Commissioner was satisfied that the said land was needed for the aforesaid public purpose and a notification to that effect under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act would be published in the Government Gazette. The Commissioner appointed Special Land Acquisition Officer (General), Nagpur to perform the functions of Collector under sub-section (1) of section 4 of the said Act. Thereafter on 7-1-1993, notification was published under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act and it was declared that the said land was required for the aforesaid public purpose, viz. for the purpose of research and development area of the Defence Department. In the notification under section 6, in exercise of powers under sub-section (1) of section 17, it was directed that the Collector on expiration of 15 days from the publication of notice relating to the aforesaid land under sub-section (1) of section 9, shall take possession of the lands specified which, as aforesaid, included the land comprising of Survey No. 59 admeasuring 1.56 HR situated at Mouza Mohgaon, Tahsil and District Nagpur. It is further borne out from the record that a notice under sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued and the persons interested in the land viz. the present petitioners were called upon to appear personally or by agent on 18th March, 1993 before the Special Land Acquisition Officer (General), Nagpur to state nature of their interest in the land and particulars of their claim for compensation. It was made clear in that notice under section 9 that possession will be taken within 15 days from the publication of that notice. By this writ petition, the petitioners pray for quashing of the notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act dated 3-11-1992 published in the Official Gazette on 26-11-1992 and for declaration that the entire land acquisition proceedings relating to the aforesaid land were void and liable to be dropped.
3. Mr. V.C. Daga, the learned Counsel for petitioners strenuously urged that the acquisition proceedings were bad in law and there was no justification for invoking urgency clause under sub-section (4) of section 17 in the facts and circumstances of the present case. The learned Counsel submitted that though the notification under section 4 was issued on 3-11-1992 and published in the Official Gazette on 26-11-1992 and notification under section 6 was also published on 7-1-1993, but the offer of 80 per cent amount of estimated compensation was made for the first time in the month of February 1994 when the objection to the acquisition was raised by the petitioners and according to him that showed that there was no urgency. The learned Counsel for petitioners, thus, submitted that the valuable right of the petitioners under section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act has been unjustifiably taken away and that vitiated the entire acquisition proceedings. He relied upon the decision of the Apex Court in The State of Punjab & another v. Gurdial Singh & others, : [1980]1SCR1071 .
On behalf of the respondent No. 2 submissions have been filed and it has been pointed out that the land in question along with other land was needed for the public purpose, viz. research and development area for Defence Department and since there was no Government land in the vicinity, the land in question was sought to be acquired for the said purpose. It is further stated in the submissions that the land of others has also been acquired for the said purpose and owners of those lands have been paid compensation in advance and the petitioners were also asked to accept 80% of the compensation on 23-2-1994, but they sought time and on 30th March, 1994, again they were offered compensation, but they refused to accept. In this background, the respondents have urged that the petition has no merit and is liable to be dismissed.
4. The only point that falls for consideration in the writ petition is, whether in the facts and circumstances of the case, dispensing of the enquiry under section 5-A was unjustified or suffered from any arbitrariness when though the notification under section 4 invoking power of urgency under sub-section (4) of section 17 was published in the Official Gazette on 26-11-1992, the declaration under section 6 of the Act was published in the Gazette on 7-1-1993 and by the notice under section 9, petitioners were called upon to appear personally or by agent on 18-3-1993 to establish their interest in the land and particulars of their claim or compensation but only on 23-2-1994, the petitioners were offered 80 percent of the compensation.
5. The learned Counsel for petitioners strongly relied upon the following observations of the Apex Court in State of Punjab v. Gurdial Singh, (supra):---
'...Without referring to supportive case-law, it is fundamental that compulsory taking of a man's property is a serious matter and the smaller the man the more serious the matter. Hearing him before depriving him is both reasonable and pre-emptive of arbitrariness and denial of this administrative fairness is constitutional anathema except for good reasons. Save in real urgency where public interest does not book even the minimum time needed to give a hearing land acquisition authorities should not, having regard to Articles 14 (and 19), burke an enquiry under section 17 of the Act. Here a slum-bearing process, pending for years and suddenly exciting itself into immediate forcible taking, makes a travesty of emergency power.'
In the said case, the Government sought to acquire particular land for establishing a grain market, then gave it up and selected another piece of land, but ultimately acquisition of the latter was declared mala fide by the High Court and seven years thereafter the Government again sought to acquire the same land under emergency powers under section 17 and, therefore, the Apex Court held that the invoking of the section was not justified. On the other hand, in the present case, on a conspectus of the material on record, it is borne out very clearly that the notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued on 3-11-1992 and published in the Gazette on 26-11-1992 and the land was needed for research and development area of Defence Department and the need was urgent which was duly satisfied by the acquiring authority, the power under section 17(4) was invoked and the enquiry under section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act was dispensed with. The time was not allowed to be rolled by indefinitely and declaration under section 6 was published in the Official Gazette on 7-1-1993 to the effect that the land in question was required for the public purpose, viz. for the purpose of research and development area of the Defence Department. Notice under sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued and petitioners were called upon to appear either personally or by agent on 18th March, 1993 before the respondent No. 2 to state their interest in the land and particulars of their claims for compensation and it was clearly mentioned that possession will be taken within 15 days from the publication of notices. The other land owners, whose lands were also acquired, were paid compensation and petitioners were offered compensation on 23-2-1994, but since they did not accept it, the possession could not be taken. In view of these facts, it cannot be said that the acquiring authority was not justified in invoking its power under sub-section (4) of section 17 and that there was no urgency and enquiry under section 5-A could not have been dispensed with. The legal position is that whether the land needs to be acquired urgently or not, depends upon the subjective satisfaction of the appropriate Government or the competent authority having power to acquire the land and ordinarily the courts do not interfere with such subjective satisfaction of the Competent Authority competent to the acquire unless such subjective satisfaction is vitiated by mala fides or suffers from oblique motive. The Court cannot ordinarily enquire whether there were sufficient grounds to form opinion by the Government under sub-section (4) of section 17 and once on the material available with the Government an opinion has been formed that there was sufficient ground for invoking the power under sub-section (4) of section 17 and in dispensing with the enquiry under section 5-A of the Act, the Court of law would not interfere with such subjective satisfaction unless it is unequivocally demonstrated that the appropriate Government or for that matter, the acquiring authority had not applied its mind to the matter or that such action was mala fide or actuated with ulterior motive. In the present case, the learned Counsel for petitioners could not demonstrate any mala fides in the action of the acquiring authority invoking power under sub-section (4) of section 17 in dispensing with the enquiry under section 5-A of the Act. As a matter of fact, the learned Counsel for petitioners during the course of arguments did not challenge at all notification under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act which was published in the Official Gazette on 7-1-1993 and thereby it was declared that the land in question was required for the said public purpose. The said declaration of public purpose in the notification under section 6 is conclusive evidence that the land in question is needed for the public purpose i.e. for the purpose of research and development area of the Defence Department.
6. Besides that, merely because the offer of 80 per cent of estimated compensation was made to the petitioners on 23-2-1994 i.e. after about one year of the publication of the notification under section 6, cannot be a ground for invalidating the invocation of the power under sub-section (4) of section 17 and dispensing with the enquiry under section 5-A of the Act. The very fact that the land in question is needed for the purpose of research and development area of the Defence Department and in the vicinity, there was no other Government land, showed the urgency of the land in question for the said purpose. The requirement of the land for the purpose of research and development area of the Defence Department is a matter of national urgency relating to security of State and we may take judicial notice of this fact. Slight slackness or little laxity on the part of the Special Land Acquisition Officer who was entrusted with the task of taking possession of the land in question, shall not by itself be sufficient to undo the other justified invocation of the urgency provision of the Land Acquisition Act for providing the land which was needed for research and development area of the Defence Department. There may be avoidable inaction on the part of the Special Land Acquisition Officer in offering 80 per cent of the estimated compensation when it was done on 23-2-1994, but the fact remains that there was no oblique motive alleged or mala fides imputed invoking the urgency power under sub-section (4) of section 17 and dispensing with the enquiry under section 5-A.
7. In State of U.P. v. Pista Devi, : [1986]3SCR743 , the Apex Court held as under:---
'5. The main ground on which the High Court set aside the impugned notification and the declaration was that the case of urgency put forward by the State Government for dispensing with the compliance with the provisions of section 5-A of the Act had been belied by the delay of nearly one year that had ensued between the date of declaration made under section 4 and the date of the notification under section 6 of the Act. The High Court observed that if the Government were satisfied with the urgency it would have certainly issued declaration under section 6 of the Act immediately after the issue of the notification under section 4 of the Act. It found that the failure to issue declaration under section 6 of the Act immediately on the part of the State Government was fatal. That there was delay of nearly one year between the publication of the notification under section 4(1) of the Act containing the direction dispensing with the compliance with section 5-A of the Act and the date of publication of the declaration issued under section 6 of the Act is not disputed. It is seen from the record before us that after the publication of the notification under section 4(1) of the Act, the Collector after going through it found that there were some errors in the notification which needed to be corrected by issuing a corrigendum. Accordingly, he wrote a letter to the State Government, on 25-8-1980 pointing out the errors and requesting the State Government to publish a corrigendum immediately. Both the corrigendum and the declaration under section 6 of the Act were issued on May 1, 1981. It is on account of some error on the part of the officials who were entrusted with the duty of processing of the case at the level of the Secretariat there was a delay of nearly one year between the publication of the notification under section 4(1) and the publication of the declaration under section 6 of the Act. The question for consideration is whether in the circumstances of the case it could be said that on account of the mere delay of nearly one year in the publication of the declaration it could be said that the order made by the State Government dispensing with the compliance with section 5-A of the Act at the time of the publication of the notification under section 4 of the Act would stand vitiated in the absence of any other material. In this case, there is no allegation of any kind of mala fides on the part of either the Government or any of the officers, nor do the respondents contend that there was no urgent necessity for providing housing accommodation to a large number of people of Meerut City during the relevant time. The letters and the certificates submitted by the Collector and the Secretary of the Meerut Development. Authority to the State Government before the issue of the notification under section 4(1) of the Act clearly demonstrated that at that time there was a great urgency felt by them regarding the provision of housing accommodation at Meerut. The State Government acted upon the said reports before it. In the circumstances of the case it cannot be said that the decision of the State Government in resorting to section 17(1) of the Act was unwarranted. The provision of housing accommodation in these days has become a matter of national urgency. We may take judicial notice of this fact. Now it is difficult to hold that in the case of proceedings relating to acquisition of land for providing houses sites it is necessary to invoke section 17(1) of the Act and to dispense with the compliance with section 5-A of the Act...'
8. In Pista Devi's case (supra), it would be seen that the Apex Court did not find any merit in the contention raised therein that the elimination of the enquiry under section 5-A was invalidated in the acquisition proceedings, though in the said case, notification under section 4(1) of the Act was issued on 12th July, 1980 read with under section 17(4) dispensing with the enquiry under section 5-A followed by declaration under section 6 of the Act published on 1-5-1981 and the possession of the land was only taken in July, 1982. Time of almost two years lapsed from the date of issuance of the notification under section 4(1) and under sub-section (4) of section 17 of the Act and the date on which possession was taken but it was not considered to be fatal and enough for invalidating the invocation of power under section 17(4) of the Act and dispensing with the enquiry under section 5-A of the Act. The ratio of the Apex Court in Pista Devi's case (supra) is fully attracted in the facts and circumstances of the present case and, therefore, the contention of the learned Counsel for the petitioners is devoid of any substance.
9. Consequently, the writ petition has no force and is dismissed accordingly with no order as to costs. Rule is discharged.