- (1.) THESE two writ petitions have been pending at the High Court for about eleven years. The issues are common in both the writ petitions and com mon arguments were addressed on them. The aspect relates to the let in the dis cipline of urban planning whether the advantage is taken by those who may have vested rights or others who are incharge of urban planning and arranged to vest these rights in others. For the Court the interpretation of the law has to be seen in this context as a standarised measure so that this applicability is universal and the discharge of obligations by those who are incharge of urban planning have clearcut guidelines on what they have to do.
(2.) THE petitioners were admittedly granted a lease by the local authority known as the Nagar Mahapalika, Kanpur, and the Kanpur Development Authority. THE lease granted to Smt. Snehlata Dwivedi, is by a covenant dated 17 August, 1972, (Annexure-1 to the writ petition ). In the matter of Umanath Tripathi and another, the lease is dated 24th December, 1972. In the first matter the lessor is the Nagar Maha Palika, Kanpur, in other the Kanpur Development Authority. THE Nagar Maha Palika, Kanpur, functions under the Uttar Pradesh Nagar Maha Palika Ad-hiniyam, 1959. THE Kanpur Development Authority functions under the U. P. Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973. Be that as it may, upon the petitioners securing lessee rights and receiving maps duly sanctioned, as they claim, by the respective local authorities, aforesaid, they set about the construct a set of shops and residential quarters. In the meantime, both of them received notices from the Public Works Department that they had violated the provisions of the U. P. Roadside Land Control Act, 1945 and a complaint was instituted in the appropriate court for their prosecution. The. notices to the petitioners for the violation of the U. P. Roadside Land Control Act, 1945, rests on the hypothesis that the State Government had issued a notification dated 7th Sep tember, 1970, so mentioned in the notices itself, that the width on either side of the centre of the road stood at 200 ft. The road and/or the highway in question being the Hamirpur Road was announced as part of the development area and the width of the road stood protected from any encroachment as clearly the purpose of the law under the U. P. Roadside Land Control Act, 1945 was that the highway was meant for passage and for no other purpose. The notices by which the petitioners were intimated of violation of the provisions of the U. P. Roadside Land Control Act, 1945 in the matter of Smt. Snehlata Dwivedi is dated 30th October, 1975 and is appended as Annexure-2 to the writ petition and in the matter of Umanath Tripathi and another, the notice is undated, as placed before the Court, and is appended as Annexure- 2 to the writ petition. In both cases, in the notices, the reference to the width from the centre is to a width on each half side as being 200 ft. , implying thereby that from the centre on either side two halfs of 200 ft. , the gross width being 400ft. While the record stands by requiring the petitioners to face prosecution for violation of the law, in the meantime, the Nagar Maha Palika, Kanpur, and the Kanpur Development Authority, as the case may be, took out recoveries against the petitioners requiring them to pay the balance of the consideration upon which lease had been granted to them.
(3.) THE contention of learned counsel for the petitioners is two fold. Firstly it is contended that on the one hand the petitioners face an apprehension of being questioned on having violated the law being the U. P. Roadside Land Control Act, 1945, and the danger of being wrested out of possession so as to reduce the area of the plots which were leased to them, secondly, on the other hand the local bodies press for recoveries for the balance of the consideration as lease money, which lease may be of a reduced area. It is further submitted that the action of the local bodies and/or the State department is contradictory because should be prosecution succeed they would have to vacate, in which case there is no occasion for the local bodies to press for recoveries for the balance of the consideration for the leases which had been granted as, in effect, the area of the land leased so far would stand reduced. THE last submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that the petitioners have com mitted no fault when they signed their respective covenants with the local authorities, that is, the Nagar Mahapalika, Kanpur, or the Kanpur Development Authority, and having been assured of the grant of lease they made constructions on the plots and they, in the circumstances, should not be divested of the lease or be dispossessed. What the, petitioners forget is that they have invoked the prerogative writ jurisdiction of the High Court, which, in effect, implies that the Court is to certify the record before it is inclined to interfere on a State action, or for that matter, an action of a local authority. On record is the aspect that before any lease could have been granted, the law has taken its course under the U. P. Roadside Land Control Act, 1945 to declare universally that in the area, in the context of the present writ petitions, the road stood in its breadth with certain measurements. The width of this public highway, the Hamirpur Road in its specifications, cannot be compromised or reduced merely because between the petitioners as lessees and their lessors, they broke the law to arrange to sell a public road.;