Ase Mohd. Vs. State of U.P. and ors.

.....the provisions of land acquisition act, 1894. it would, however, be open to the court in exercise of that power to invite the attention of the executive to any public purpose and the need for land for meeting that public purpose and to require the executive to take a decision, even a reasoned decision, with regard to the same in accordance with the statutory provisions, perhaps even within a reasonable time frame. however, the power of the court under article 226 must necessarily stop at that. thereafter, if the decision taken by the executive is capable of challenge and, there exist appropriate legal grounds for such challenge, it may also be open to the court to quash the decision and to require reconsideration. but no direction in the nature of mandamus whether interim or final can be issued by the court under article 226 to the executive to necessarily acquire a particular area of a particular piece of land for a particular public purpose. section 4; compulsory acquisition of land powers of state government held, renewal of lease in favour of petitioners would not take away power of state government of compulsory acquisition of land. renewal of lease would at best be taken into consideration for determining quantum of compensation. ordersushil harkauli and sabhajeet yadav, jj.1. heard learned counsel for the petitioner.2. it appears from the stated facts that there was a contract between the petitioner and the respondents in which there was an arbitration clause.3. there arose some dispute regarding the payment for the work done by the petitioner under the contract.4. the petitioner has made a representation to the executive engineer, copy of which has been filed as annexure-9 to this writ petition. the representation relates to the same dispute which is covered by the arbitration clause.5. by this writ petition, the petitioner has prayed for a writ of mandamus requiring the executive engineer to decide the representation by a reasoned order.6. in substance, the said prayer made by the petitioner in this writ petition amounts to asking this court to issue a direction substituting the arbitrator contemplated by the arbitration clause with the executive engineer ; and also requiring the engineer to virtually adjudicate upon the dispute by a 'reasoned' order.7. in our opinion, this would be violative of the contract between the parties which contains the arbitration clause.8. learned counsel for the petitioner has relied, as a precedent, upon a judgment dated 22nd march, 2004 passed by a division bench of this court in writ petition no. 11692 of 2004. that order has issued a mandamus calling upon the respondent authority to appoint an arbitrator in terms of the arbitration clause.9. where there is an arbitration agreement and one party fails or refuses to appoint the arbitrator : (a) under the old arbitration act, 1940, an application was to be made under section 20 and now (b) under the section 11(5) of the new arbitration and conciliation act, 1996, the power to appoint the arbitrator in such a case has been given to the chief justice.10. in our opinion, it would not be appropriate for this bench to issue a direction which would amount to taking that power away from the chief justice in.....