BHAGWATI DEVI Vs. PRESIDENT OF INDIA THROUGH THE UNDER SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE, NEW DELHI AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These four petitions under article 226 of the Constitution raise the question of the validity of notices of resumption of the lands of the various petitioners situate in the Meerut Cantonment, which are alleged to have been held by them under old grants or what is popularly known as Cantonment tenure. On the lands of the petitioners in three of the four petitions stand buildings.

(2.) Smt. Bhagwati Devi, Petitioner in Writ Petition No. 520 of 1969, is the sole heir of the original proprietors of the land in dispute in that petition and of the building thereon. She contends that her land is not held under any old grant and the land and the building thereon were the private property of her ancestors and the land cannot be resumed. The petitioners in the other three petitions admit that the-lands held by them were acquired by their predecessor-in-title under an old grant but dispute the power of the Government to resume them as sought to be done.

(3.) The impugned notices of resumption given by the Government to the Petitioners individually offer, it may be mentioned, compensation for the buildings standing thereon.