Sabyasachi Mukherjee, J. - (1.) This petition was filed on or about 20th of February, 1981 and a rule nisi obtained on behalf of 142 petitioners. Subsequently petitioners No. 82, No. 83, No. 86, No. 105 and No. 107 filed an application during the hearing of this petition asking for leave to withdraw from the said writ petition. I granted such leave. Therefore, out of the 142 petitioners 5 have to be deleted, and there are about 137 petitioners now in the instant writ petition. There was another Writ Petition C.R No. 697 (W) of 1981 Satya Narayan Ghosh & Ors. v. State of West Bengal, & Ors. which was also filed by several petitioners. Both these petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution challenge certain orders of requisition under the West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1948 issued by the Collector, Hooghly and the Additional District Magistrate Hooghly said to be for alleged implementation of 'Gea-Kunti Basin Drainage Scheme'. I will have occasion to refer to this scheme later on. The petitioners ask for a writ of mandamus asking the respondents not to take any step or further steps pursuant to or continuing on the basis of what is described as purported orders of requisition which were annexed to the petition collectively and in any manner whatsoever utilising the lands of the petitioners for the purposes detailed in the said orders of requisition and cancel the same and certain other incidental reliefs as mentioned hereinbefore. The orders of requisition were issued under the 1948 Act, as indicated before and the purpose was said to be for the implementation of the said scheme as I have indicated before. The petitioners in both the petitions make common grievances and the grievances in short are-that they are agriculturists and citizens of India holding agricultural lands in different Mouzas namely, Balitipa, Baghdanga, Balarampur, Swetpur, Garji, Bighati, Gourangapur, Dighara and Khurigachi etc. under the Police Station Singur and Police Station Bhadreswar in the District of Hooghly. The petitioners grow crops and rice and they and their members of the family are entirely dependent upon the income derived from the produce of these lands and they alleged that the Collector of Hooghly under Act II of 1948 in exercise of the powers conferred under sub-section (1A) of Section 3 of the West Bengal Land Re question and Acquisition Act, 1948 purporting to requisition the petitioner's land for the alleged purpose of re-excavation of cut Kunti Basin Drainage Scheme under Ghea-Kunti Scheme. Several points were taken in the petition but some very broad points were pressed before me.
(2.) The first point that was pressed before me was this, Ghea-Kunti Drainage Scheme had been prepared by the Government of West Best Bengal after long deliberations in or about 1973. Thereafter, having regard to the needs of the people around and having regard to the plight of the people who would be dislodged if the scheme was fully implemented and having regard to the various other factors, on or about 26th of May, 1976 the Government of West Bengal published a booklet 'Ghea-Kunti Drainage Scheme' and made certain representations to the people therein. It is the allegations of the petitioners that the orders of requisition were in complete deviation from the scheme referred to above. They, further, allege that the said deviations had been made without any rational justification and as such the said requisition orders were not for the alleged purpose for which these were purported to have been made. The petitioners have, further, stated that in or about 1954 a canal named Cut-Kunti was excavated from the river Kunti by the Damodar Valley Corporation for the purpose of drainage of water of River Ghea. The length of the canal is about 11 kilometres and its breadth is about 100 ft. It is stated that it starts from Makhalitala and ends at Champdani. According to the petitioners, programmes for the purpose of carrying out the Ghea-Kunti Basin Drainage Scheme were made in the said printed booklet wherefrom it would be found that in order to implement this scheme the canal Cut-Kunti would be utilised as far as possible by expanding the bed of the said canal and for that purpose no other land would be acquired. Excess water would find its way from the rivers Ghea, Kunti, Saraswati et cetera as shown in the map. For that purpose, the silted bed of these rivers would be excavated. According to the petitioners the lands acquired in the year 1954 for excavation of the canal Cut-Kunti had not been yet fully utilised. It is also the case of the petitioners that under the programme no further land would be acquired, which according to the petitioners, is the representation contained in the booklet for the purpose of such canal is now being attempted to be violated. The petitioners, further, state that though river Ghea has been re-excavated but neither Kunti nor Saraswati nor the existing drainage canals have been re-excavated, which according to the version of the petitioners of the scheme, would have saved the land and drained the whole flood water as such the petitioners' grievance is that the purported requisitions were bad and had been made for collateral purposes and ulterior motive and contrary to the assurances given in the scheme. The petitioners state that whereas Kunti, North Saraswati and South Saraswati were required to be de-silted and re-excavated, no such work had been undertaken. Further, to highlight the grievance the petitioners stated that while the main river of Ghea is 165 feet in breadth and 25 feet high the Cut-Kunti is sought to be expanded to 700 feet alone besides North and South Saraswati and Kunti for the outlet of the Water flowing from the said stream which according to the petitioners is without any rhyme or reason. Therefore, the petitioners state that the purported requisitions are contrary to what is laid down in the programme and the expression 're-excavation of Cut-Kunti' is bad. The petitioners further state that there is promissory estoppel binding on the Government not to requisition the lands in question. Further, the said orders are being sought to be proceeded with in an arbitrary manner without taking all the relevant factors into consideration. Therefore, the factual grievance of the petitioners is that there is promissory estoppel binding on the Government and the purported orders of requisition in alleged implementation of the scheme are malafide and bad without taking into consideration all the relevant factors into consideration.
(3.) The second grievance of the petitioners is that the Act of 1948 was a temporary statute and the said temporary statute had expired by efflux of time and therefore the purported orders of requisition are bad because the same were made after the expiry of the statute because the orders of requisition were passed in December, 1980 or early part of January 1981. The petitioners' further grievance is that the ACT; called the West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Re-enaction Act of 1977 has no legal effect and is also bad. The said Act was passed according to the petitioners in June, 1977 after the expiry of the previous Act on 31st of March, 1977 and a dead Act could nut be made alive by subsequent re-enactment.;