Punjab-Haryana High Court
National Fertilizers Employees ... vs State Of Haryana And Ors. on 24 July, 1998
Equivalent citations: (1998)120PLR618
JUDGMENT V.K. Bali, J.
1 .The petitioner which is employees Co-operative Housing Society Ltd., is in a serious dilemma. It purchased 33 acres of land by virtue of various sale deeds from April, 1983 to August 1984 so as to accommodate members of the petitioner-society to have their homestead. For this 33 acres of land an agreement Annexure P-3 came into existence between the society and Director, Town and Country Planning, Haryana, for its development and external charges were fixed by the Director aforesaid at RS. 22.50 Lacs. Vide Annexure P-4 Director Town and Country Planning approved the plan for conversion of land into 342 plots on which houses were to be made for the members of the society. It requires, to be highlighted here that the original membership of the society is 586 and therefore, by virtue of purchasing 33 acres of land. Only 342 members of the society could be accommodated. The petitioner society on proper and correct consideration of the matter was granted licence vide Annexure P-5 to develop the area purchased by it for the development of the housing colony. So as to accommodate the remaining members of the petitioner society, land measuring 20.5 acres was purchased on various dates from May 30, 1987 to February 4, 1988 and it is at that time when the petitioner-society was to take active steps to obtain licence so as to establish a colony with regard to this area as well, that to its predicament, notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act came to be issued by the Government of Haryana which besides other land covered entire land of the petitioner-society including this land purchased by the petitioner-society from May 30, 1987 to February 2, 1988 i.e. area measuring 20.5 Acres. Petitioner promptly filed objections under section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act, detailing therein the difficulties that it will face if the land purchased by it for providing houses to employees is acquired. It appears that the objections of the petitioner-society succeeded only half way through inasmuch as only 33 acres of land purchased by the petitioner-society prior in point of time was not included in the declaration issued under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act whereas the remaining land measuring 20.5 Acres purchased from May 1987 to February 1988 was included in the declaration issued by the Government under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act. The petitioner even after issuance of notification under section 6 made representation and brought to the notice of the concerned authorities that the land purchased from April 1983 to August 1984 has since not been finally acquired and a proper colony as envisaged by it could not be put into execution if 20.5 Acres of Land was to be acquired. It appears that the sole ground, namely that petitioner had not obtained licence from the Director Town and Country Planning by the time, notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued was considered enough not to leave this 20.5 acres of land and for this precise reason, it appears that the objections filed by the petitioner-society under section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act qua the land measuring 20.5 acres were not accepted. A follow up declaration under section 6 was issued on February 22, 1990. Thereafter, petitioner had also been making number of requests so as to release 20.5 acres of land which was also to be developed into housing colony. When all entreaties of the petitioner society brought no tangible results, the present petition was filed in the year 1992. Pitted in the situation that the petitioner presently finds itself, in the present petition filed by it, the obvious prayer of the petitioner is to quash notifications under sections 4 and 6 of the Act and all proceedings that might have taken place pursuant to the notifications or in alternative to release the land from the array of acquisition.
2. The facts as pleaded reveal that the employees of the National Fertilizers. Panipat, formed a co-operative society, namely National Fertilizers Employees Co- operative Housing Society Ltd, Panipat, in the year and its registered address is B-47, N.F.L. Township, Panipat. A certificate showing that the society was duly registered at No. 63 on October 25, 1982 has been annexed as Annexure P.1 with the petition. The primary object of the society is to acquire land for the construction of houses for the members of the society. All the members of the petitioner-society are employees working with the National Fertilizer Limited. The society in order to give a concrete shape to the objects for which it was constituted started purchasing land in Panipat for developing a colony for the members of its society. Society purchased land vide different sales deeds executed and registered in its favour on 15.4.1983, 18.5.1983, 20.6.1983, 9.8.1983, 16.11.1983, 2.1.1984, 5.7.1984, 7.8.1984. By these various sale deeds a total area of 33 acres was purchased and the mutation was sanctioned in favour of the society in due course of time. After purchase of the said land, the society applied for the licence for developing a colony with the Director, Town and Country Planning, Chandigarh. After complying with all the formalities, the society entered into an agreement with the Director, Town and Country Planning, Haryana. Thereafter society got licence No. 30/85 on September 20, 1985. After getting the complete plan prepared of 33 acres of land, it was submitted to the Director Town and Country Planning for approval and the same was duly approved. The approved plan has been placed on records as Annexure P-4. In the approved plan, the society could carve out only 342 plots for its members whereas total strength of the members was 586. One hundred and seventy-seven employees of the society got housing building loan in advance from National Fertilizers Ltd. for the purchase of land on May 14, 1987. Thereafter the society purchased some more land measuring 20.5 acres by various sale deeds executed and registered on 30.5.1987, 5.6.1987, 30.6.1987, 12.1.1988 and 4.2.1988. Mutation with regard to this land was also entered in the name of the petitioner society. After the plan was approved the society constructed roads, sewerage, road culverts, septic tanks, installed transformer and electricity work was completed and for the purpose of water supply a tube well was constructed at the cost of Rs. 2.5 Lacs to 3 Lacs by the Minor Irrigation and Tubewell Corporation, Karnal and all other facilities were provided. In the approved plan of the society a primary school in an area of one and half acre, two nursery schools, half acre each, dispensary in one acre, community building in one acre, shopping centre with five shops and all other facilities as per directions of the Director Town and Country Planning were provided. After completing all formalities in the said area, the society could only carve out 342 plots and the said 342 plots were allotted to 342 members of the society and accordingly letters of allotment were issued to them on October 24, 1988. Possession of plots was also given to the members who were allotted plots. Society got the plan prepared from Architect S.D. Sharma and Associates Planner and Engineers for extending the colony in 20.5. acres of land purchased for accommodating the remaining members of the society provieing all the facilities and amenities as per the directions of the Director Town and Country Planning. However, this plan of the petitioner got shelved as respondent No. 1 issued notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act which was published in the gazette on February 23, 1989 for the public purpose namely, development and utilisation of land as residential and commercial area for Sector 17. Panipat under the Haryana Urban Development Authority Act, 1977 by the Haryana Urban Development Authority in the area of village Patti Insar, Panipat and Patti Kahdoom Jadgaon, Tehsil Panipat, District Karnal. The entire land purchased by the petitioner i.e. one that came to be purchased earlier i.e. measuring 33 acres and 20.5 acres of land purchased in the year 1987-88 was intended to be acquired when notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued. Aggrieved petitioner made representation on March 14, 1989 against the acquisition of the land of the society to the Land Acquisition Collector. All objections as have been mentioned above were given in the representation aforesaid. Petitioner received intimation from respondent No. 2 that its representation dated March 16, 1989 had been forwarded to respondent 3 under section 5-A of the Act. It is the positive case of the petitioner, that a combined layout plan was prepared for its total land measuring 53.5 Acres and it submitted an application on April 29, 1989 in Form LC alongwith demand draft dated May 1, 1989 for an amount of Rs. 6,000/- in the office of Director, Town and Country Planning for grant of licence to set up a residential colony at Panipat. Copy of Form LC-1 has been annexed with the petition as Annexure P-12. After waiting for about three months, petitioner made yet another representation on June 21, 1989, to respondent No. 3 for release of land of the society under section 4 of the Act. The petitioner again made a detailed representation to the Commissioner and Secretary to Government of Haryana on October 26, 1989. The petititioner also filed its objections under section 5-A of the Land Acquisition Act before the Land Acquisition Collector but received no reply from any quarter whatsoever. The State then issued follow up declaration on February 22, 1990 which was published in the Haryana Government gazette which released only 33 acres of land which the petitioner purchased in the year 1983-84 whereas 20.5. acres of land purchased in the year 1987-88 was not released from acquisition. After issuance of follow up declaration the petitioner made yet another representation to the Director Town and Country Planning, Haryana on March 19, 1990. The petitioner forwarded his representation to various dignitaries but, as mentioned above, when the entreaties of the petitioner brought no favourable results, the present petition was filed.
3. Pursuant to notice issued by this Court the respondents have entered defence and filed the written statement. It has been pleaded by way of preliminary objections, that the land measuring 32 Acres 4 Kanals and 17 Marias was left out from acquisition, after considering the objections filed by the petitioner-society. A licence was granted by the Town and Country Plan Department vide license No. 320 dated May 19, 1985 to the society to develop the land measuring 32 Acts 4 Kanals and 17 Marias for residential purpose. The rest of the land approximately 21 acres had been purchased subsequently by the society and no licence in respect of it had been granted. Therefore, it was decided by the Government to acquire 21 acres of land. In the written statement the basic facts as have been detailed in the writ have not been denied.
4. On the facts as have been detailed above Mr. Ashok Aggarwal, the learned Senior Counsel who is assisted by Mr. Rohit Ahuja, vehemently contends that the government has not applied its mind while interpreting the expression public purpose and therefore has wrongly and illegally issued notifications for acquisition of the land of the petitioner for 'public purpose' as mentioned in the two ratifications. In both the notifications, the 'public purpose' for which the land has been acquired, has been given as the development and utilization of land as residential and commercial area for sector 17', Panipat under the Haryana Urban Development Authority Act, 1977. The petitioner is an Employee's Cooperative House Building Society and the land has been purchased by the society for the purpose of developing a colony for residential purpose of the members of the society. So, the purpose of both the cases is the same. It is then contended by the learned Counsel that the members of petitioner society cannot be ousted so as to accommodate others for whom the houses later on have to be provided on the land subject matter of acquisition. It is then urged by the learned Counsel that distinction of not releasing 20.5 acre of land could not be made on the only ground that 33 acres of land had since been purchased on which licence for colonisation had since been issued, whereas with regard to the remaining land measuring 20.5 Acres no such licence had been obtained particularly when the entire land, be it 33 acres or 20.5 Acres came to be purchased prior to the issuance of notification under section 4 and for the same purpose of providing homestead to the members of the society. In the same vein, the learned Counsel contends that by releasing 33 acres of land and acquiring 20.5 acres, the entire purpose of the petitioner shall be frustrated inasmuch as the planning done by it so as to provide various public places like community centre, dispensary etc. cannot possibly be gone into, if only 33 acres of land is left to the petitionersociety.
5. Mr. Sharma, learned Counsel representing the State has argued in tune with the averments made in the written statement. Before I might proceed any further in this matter, I would like to mention that when this matter came before me on February 27, 1998, after hearing the arguments at considerable length, I had adjourned the matter to March 6, 1998 enabling Mr. Bishnoi, the Counsel then representing the State to appraise the Court if any part of the land owned by the petitioner-society and for which the prayer is made to release it, was to come in any way in any specific development of the area as per Planning of the respondents. Pursuant to directions contained in my aforesaid order, Mr. Arvind Mehtani Assistant Town Planner and Mr. I.K. Chopra Field Officer appeared in Court on March 20, 1998. They informed the Court that 24 plots of 10 Marias each have been earmarked in the planning/zoning made by HUDA. Besides that, a part of the road on one side was also in an area belonging to the petitioner. They were asked to earmark the area of 24 plots and the part of the road in the site plan with red ink. Plan has been placed on record and the same is marked as Annexure C-1.
6. From the facts that have been reproduced above it is established by overwhelming evidence that the petitioner-society came into being far prior to when notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued. Entire land i.e. 53.5 acres of land was also purchased prior to when notification under section 4 was issued. So far as 33 acres of land is concerned, it is once again established that the petitioner had not only made planning of the area but the same also was approved by the competent authority and the external charges were paid, so much so, that the petitioner-society was even issued licence for colonisation with regard to 33 acres of land. It is once again established on the records that 20.5 acres of land also came to be purchased for the same purpose i.e. for providing houses to the members of the society. Later purchases of 20.5 acres of land was made so as to complete the scheme that came to be initially envisaged when 33 acres of land was purchased. A firm finding of fact has to be recorded that it is a case of bona fide purchase by the Housing Building Co-operative Society with the only purpose of providing houses to its members. It is also once again established that all the members of the petitioner- society are employees of NFL and most of them are low paid. This Court is also satisfied that if 20.5. acres of land is not to be made available to the petitioner- society, the whole purpose of the society i.e. to provide houses to its members shall be frustrated. In an area of 33 acres which, as mentioned above, has been exempted, a proper colony with all its facilities as envisaged cannot be possibly come into existence. If in this background, one is to see law on the point, it would appear that land of petitioner-society measuring 20.5 acres subject matter of dispute in the present petition should have been exempted. Reference at this stage be made to Ghaziabad Sheromani Sahkari Avas Samiti Ltd. v. State of U.P., A.I.R. 1990 Supreme Court 645. Brief facts of the case reveal that some co-operative societies with membership of government servants mostly of the lower strata filed writ petitions before the High Court challenging the notification under section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act. The principal contention before the High Court was that co-operative societies consisted of low paid government servants having acquired the land in dispute for the purpose of providing residential accommodations to their members, the Development Authority constituted by the State Government for the same purpose would not have been permitted to acquire that land to their prejudice and there was no justification for depriving the petitioners of that case in the facts and circumstances of the case. While dealing with the first contention the Apex Court observed as under
"In course of the hearing of these appeals we were satisfied about the genuineness of the grievance advance on behalf of the members through their respective co-operative societies and took the view that the members of the co-operative societies should not fee denied residential accommodation for which they had taken effective steps before the acquisition, for the Development Authority was notified. We took into consideration the total number of members as also the number of eligible members, the total area which the members had acquired and entrusted to co-operative societies for construction; the capacity of the members to pay for the construction now charged by the Development Authority, the need of planned development of the area; and all other relevant facts and circumstances placed by all the parties before us and formed the opinion that it would be sufficient to meet the requirements, of the members of these societies if each one of them was provided with a plot limited to an area of 80 square yards."
In the judgment aforesaid, it was further held:-
" This area of 20 acres is inclusive of land for laying of the roads and other requirements contemplated under the development scheme. For convenience and adjustment we are of the view that two more acres of land be made available to the five cooperative societies to be shared by amicable adjustment by them. Thus, from the acquisition of Notification 22 acres of land shall stand deleted and shall be released in accordance with the extent indicated for each of the five cooperative societies. The identification of the land to be so released shall be made within four weeks from the date of pronouncement of the order by mutual arrangement. We direct that when the land shall be so identified, the order of release from acquisition by appropriate description of the land shall be made; sketch maps showing the identified land shall also be signed by parties to avoid future litigation and made over to each of the societies."
7. Some other judgments have also been cited by the learned Counsel representating the petitioner but it is not necessary to mention the same as in my view the judgment of the Supreme Court in Ghaziabad Sheromani Sahkari Avas Samiti Ltd. v. State of U.P. is fully applicable to the facts of the present case. It is proved on the record of the case that most of members of the petitioner-society are low paid employees. It is a bona fide case of setting up a colony for the members of the petitioner-society. As mentioned above not only that the entire land measuring about 53 acres came to be purchased by the petitioner-society before notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act was issued but with regard to 33 acres of land petitioner-society had been permitted to establish a colony for its members. It is further provided that remaining about 20 acres of land was purchased with a view to accommodate all the members of the society as also that unless the said piece of land was available to the petitioner-society, no meaningful colony could have been carved out. The facilities which are essentially required for the inhabitants of the colony could not be made if this piece of land measuring about 21 acre was to go out of the hands of the petitioner-society. Further, it is after all a case where petitioner is endeavouring to achieve the same object as is contemplated by the government in issuing notification under section 4 and declaration under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act. If the land of the petitioner-society is acquired, it would simply mean that members of petitioner-society are deprived of a house which shall then be made available to those who may be successful in draw of lots in the residential area that may be developed by the government or the Haryana Urban Development Authority.
8. As mentioned above, the plan Annexure C-l has been produced on record by the respondents. An area that is required by the respondents i.e. 24 plots of 10 Malas each and part of the land of the petitioner which comes under a road in the planning done by the respondents has been marked in red colour. This marked portion is in a straight line and Mr. Aggarwal, learned Senior Counsel representing the petitioner in his usual fairness has stated that the said area may not be left from the array of acquisition.
9. In view of what has been stated above, this writ petition is partly allowed. The area marked in red colour in Annexure C-l would stand acquired pursuant to notifications issued under section 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act whereas the rest of the land of the petitioner shall stand exempted, thus, permitting the petitioner to colonise it in view of the planning already done by it or that might ultimately be approved by the Director-Town and Country Planning, Haryana. No Costs.