- (1.) WE have heard Sri Pankaj Dubey for the petitioners. Sri M.C. Chaturvedi, learned Chief Standing Counsel assisted by Dr. Y.K. Saxena, standing counsel appears for the State respondents. Sri Ramendra Pratap Singh appears for Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority. Sri Naveen Sinha assisted by Sri Rahul Agarwal appears for M/s Supertech Ltd. impleaded respondent in writ petition No. 27396 of 2010.
(2.) THE petitioners are original tenure holders, purchasers, and a Society recorded as owners in revenue records of the land in village Patwari, Tehsil, Dadari, District Gautam Buddha Nagar. By these eleven writ petitions, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners have challenged the notification dated 12.3.2008 under Section 4 (1), applying Section 17 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (in short, the Act) proposing to acquire a total area of about 589.188 hectares of land in the village Patwari, Pargana Dadri, District Gautam Budh Nagar, for public purpose namely for the 'Planned Industrial Development' in Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA), District Gautam Budh Nagar, recording the opinion of the Governor, that the Padma Sundara Rao v. State of Tamil Nadu, 2002 3 SCC 533 provisions of sub Section (1) of Section 17, of the Act are applicable to the said land inasmuch as the land is urgently required for the planned industrial development in District Gautam Budh Nagar through GNIDA, and in order to eliminate the delay likely to be caused by an enquiry under Section 5-Aof the Act, the Governor is further pleased to direct under sub Section (4) of Section 17 of the Act, that the provisions of Section 5A of the Act shall not apply. They have also challenged the notification published in the Official Gazette dated 30.6.2008 under Section 6 read with Section 17 (4) of the Act, declaring the acquisition of land; recording the satisfaction that sub Section (1) of Section 17 is applicable and directing the Collector of Gautam Budh Nagar, though no award under Section 11 has been made, may, on the expiry of 15 days from the date of publication of the notice under sub Section (1) of Section 9, take possession of the land mentioned in the Schedule appended to the notification. By an order dated 7.4.2009, passed in writ petition No. 17068 of 2009 (Har Karan Singh v. State of U.P. and others), the Court directed the State Government, to produce the entire records of acquisition to demonstrate that the satisfaction was recorded by the State Government by applying its own independent mind under Section 4 (1) for invoking urgency clause under Section 17 (4) of the Act, dispensing with enquiry under Section 5-A of the Act. Similar orders were passed on the other writ petitions challenging the notifications under Section 4 (1) read with Section 17 (4) and Section 6 read with Section 17 (4) of the Act.
(3.) SRI Pankaj Dubey, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that most of the petitioners are original tenure holders of their respective plots in village Patwari. The GNIDA carried out the survey clandestinely, without informing the petitioners that the land in village is proposed to be acquired. He submits that though the land use of village Patwari in the plan prepared by GNIDA, under clause 3 (2) to (6) and 4 to 9 of the New Okhla Industrial Development Area (Preparation and Finalisation of Plan) Regulations, 1991 (in short Regulations) is residential, the GNIDA has acquired large area of land since 21.2.1994 for planned industrial development, however less than 60 % of the acquired land has been developed or used for the purpose specified in the acquisition notifications. The Collector, Gautam Budh Nagar made a routine recommendation to the Directorate of Land Acquisition Board, vide letter dated 22.2.2008 alongwith certificate in form 10, for invoking the provisions of Section 17 (4) of the Act for acquiring 589.188 hectares of land for planned industrial development. The proposal included the details of survey carried by the revenue authorities. It did not specify the public purpose, for which the land was proposed to be acquired. In the proposal, no mention was made that the utilization of land was for construction of multi-storey housing complexes for general public. Sri Dubey submits that in all the writ petitions, interim orders were passed to maintain status quo. The GNIDA, however, during the pendency of these writ petitions, initiated bulk allotment scheme for construction of flats and allotted plots of various sizes between 60,000 to 4,00,000 sq. mtr at an average rate of about Rs.11,000/- sq. mtr to various builders between March to August 2010, They started booking the flats and raising constructions. The land was allotted to private builders on a purely commercial basis. The utilization of land acquired for planned industrial development for multi-storey housing complex through builders in an industrial area was not a public purpose. There is no reservation for allotment of flats by the private builders to the persons running industries in GNIDA or to the farmers whose land was acquired.;