Uttarakhand High Court
Ranjit Singh And Another vs State Of Uttarakhand And Others on 14 August, 2013
Author: Servesh Kumar Gupta
Bench: Servesh Kumar Gupta
IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL
Special Appeal No. 64 of 2012
Ranjit Singh and another. ....Appellants.
Versus
State of Uttarakhand and others. ....Respondents
Mr. Piyush Garg, Advocate for the appellants.
Mr. U.K. Uniyal, Advocate General with Mr. K.P. Upadhyay, Chief Standing Counsel for
the State of Uttarakhand / respondents.
Hon'ble Barin Ghosh, C. J.
Hon'ble Servesh Kumar Gupta, J.
Learned Advocate General has brought to our notice an order issued by the Chief Secretary, which suggests that, in relation to the remaining land, the Police Department of the State will prepare an appropriate proposal. The fact remains that a part of the land is in the occupation of the Police Department of the State. On that land, there is a structure. The structure along with the land was let out to the Police Department only for the purpose of using the same for residential purpose and the tenanted property was utilized for accommodating the official residence of SSP, Dehradun. In a suit for eviction, the State lost. In the Appeal, preferred against the decree for eviction, the State lost. Thereafter, the State did not take up the matter before the Hon'ble Supreme Court and permitted the eviction decree to reach finality. Soon thereafter, however, a Section 4 Notification was issued in relation to that part of the property, in respect whereof, the landlord had obtained a decree for eviction. That land is situate in the middle of a larger plot of land belonging to the same landlord. In a writ petition, it was contended that Section 4 Notification is malafide as there is no public interest involved in the said Notification and the same had been issued for the purpose of whittling down the decree of eviction. Ultimately, when the matter came up before us, after 2 the writ petition challenging the Section 4 Notification failed, we found that the land in question is situate in the heart of the city of Dehradun and, accordingly, made a request to the State Government through the learned Advocate General to acquire the land in question in its entirety for being utilized for some good State purpose. It appears from the order of the Chief Secretary, as produced, that the State Government has no interest in the land in question. It appears that the Chief Secretary is of the view that the remaining part of the land may be acquired by the Police Department of the State. If that was the situation, then the Section 4 Notification would have been for the entire land and not of a fraction thereof. We, accordingly, feel that now the Appeal has to be decided on its merit as the State Government has impliedly expressed its disinclination to acquire the whole land. We, accordingly, thought that we will proceed with the matter. To that, the learned Advocate General has submitted that he may be excused since he was working as a liaison between the Court and the Government in the matter to impress upon the Government to acquire the whole land.
2. In the circumstances, we adjourn this matter for one week in order to enable the learned Chief Standing Counsel to get ready in the matter.
3. List in the same position one week hence.
(Servesh Kumar Gupta, J.) (Barin Ghosh, C.J.)
14.08.2013 14.08.2013
Rathour