R.S.Narula, J. - (1.) THE pivotal point which was pressed before the learned Single Judge and has again been pressed before us in this appeal against the dismissal of the appellants' petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is that the notification, dated October 1, 1971, published in the Punjab Government Gazette on October 15, 1971, under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter called the Ac), was not valid, inasmuch as it did not set out information sufficient to give notice to the owners of the land that their properties were intended to be compulsorily acquired, and, there -tore, the entire subsequent acquisition, proceedings founded on the said invalid notification should be held to be non est, as the publication of a valid notification under section 4 is the sine qua non to the exercise of any further power for acquisition of land under the Act. The notification (Annexure 'A' to the writ petition) sets out that : - - Whereas, it appears to the President of India, that land is likely to be required to be take by Government, at public expenses, for a public purpose namely for excavating Naraingarh Link Drain from R.D 39120 to R.D. 59000 for full width in reach R.D. 39420 to R.D. 43300, R.D. 44800 to R.D. 45500 and R.D. 48000 to R.D. 59000 and for left half width in the remaining reaches in tahsil and district Patiala, it is hereby notified that the land in the locality described below is likely to be required for the above purpose. In the fourth paragraph of the notification it is stated that any person interested who has any objection to the acquisition of any land in the locality may within 30 days of the publication of the notification file objections in writing before the Collector, Land Acquisition Office, Drainage Circle, Patiala. The details of the land sought to be covered by the notification are then specified in Annexure 'A'. It gives the name of the district, the name of the tahsil, the name of the village, the area in acres sought to be acquired, the khasra numbers of the land, and a description of the land to be acquired in the following words : - - A strip of land 19,580 feet in length and of varying widths generally lying from south west to north -east direction as demarcated at site and as shown on the Index Plan The appellant's objection was pressed on three grounds namely : - - (i) the precise portions of the land comprised in the khasra numbers have not been mentioned in the notification ; (ii) village Fatehgarh Chhana from which 8.59 acres of land are sought to be covered by the notification has been described therein as forming part of tahsil Patiala in district Patiala, whereas in fact it bad by the time of the notification been made a part of tahsil Samana in district Patiala ; and (iii) public notice of the substance of the notification had not been given in the village of the appellants so as to enable the appellants to file objections under section 5 -A of the Act. While repelling each of the above -mentioned objections of the appellants, the learned Judge in Chambers held that the perusal of the original record showed that the notification had been proclaimed in the village of the appellants, and the endorsement about the proclamation having been issued in that village was even signed by Bachan Singh and Budh Singh appellants. The original record was again shown to us by the State counsel. The correctness of this finding of fact by the learned Single Judge was not questioned before us, but it was sought to be agitated that the signatures of all the appellants should have been obtained on the notification as it is possible that some of them might have been out of the village on the date when the proclamation was made. There is no force whatever in this contention, firstly because it would be practically impossible to follow everyone of the large number of persons that may be interested in the land sought to be acquired under a notification under section 4 of the Act, and had the requirement of the provision been as envisaged by Mr. Gandhi, the learned counsel for the appellants, it would be very easy for the land -owners to delay the acquisition proceedings by merely proving that some of them were out of the village on the date when the substance of the notification was proclaimed ; secondly, the appellants having in fact become aware of the notification within time, and having admittedly filed objections under section 5 -A of the Act, it is wholly immaterial whether some of them were or were not in the village at the time of the proclamation. Moreover, I have not been able to understand how the learned counsel for the appellants has got an impression that any law requires personal service of notice of the contents of the notification under section 4 being effected on the interested land -owners. All that sub section (1) of section 4 of the Act requires in this respect is that the Collector should cause public notice of the substance of such notification to be given "at convenient places in the said locality." I am unable to spell out of the language of section 4(1) any requirement to serve notice of the contents of the notification on any particular land -owner. The signatures of two of the appellants had been obtained merely as evidence of the substance of the notification having been proclaimed in the village of the appellants. That being so, the requirements of section 4(1) as regards giving the public notice of the substance of the notification in the locality have been fully satisfied in this case.
(2.) SIMILARLY , the learned Judge was, in our opinion, correct in repelling the objection of the appellant to the effect that the non -specification of the exact portions of the khasra numbers or nun mentioning of the names of the owners of the khasra numbers resulted in any prejudice to the appellants. Firstly, it is not necessary that the exact strip of land to be ultimately acquired under section 6 of the Act should be specified with meticulous details in the notification under section 4. The quantification of the land and the specification of the exact portions sought to be acquire 1 is expected to be made under section 4(2) of the Act after the issue of the notification under section 4(1). Section 4(2) states that upon the is sue of the notification under sub -section (1) of that section, it would be lawful for any officer authorised by the Government to enter upon and survey and take levels of any land in such locality ; to dig or bore into the sub -soil; to do all other acts necessary to ascertain whether the land is adapted for such purpose ; and "to set out the boundaries of the land proposed to be taken and the intended line of the work (if any) proposed to be made thereon', besides marking such levels, boundaries and alignments by placing marks and cutting trenches. This provision itself shows that in the nature of things the exact boundaries of the land proposed to be taken can be found not and marked at the site under subsection (2) of section 4 only after the issue of the notification under sub -section (1) of that section. Secondly, in this particular case there is no doubt that the appellants were aware of the fact that their land was involved in the proposed acquisition covered by the notification under section 4, and that is why they actually preferred objections under section 5 -A. The third objection as to the label of the name of a wrung tahsil having been used for describing the village of the appellants is also meaningless as it is nut the case of the appellants that there is any village by the name of Fatehgarh Chhana in tahsil Patiala. A similar objection has been raised in the connected case, that is Civil Writ 1560 of 1974 Hazara Singh and others v. The State of Punjab : AIR 1970 SC 802 regarding the notification under section 4 of the Act, dated October 3, 1972, for acquiring a strip of land measuring 20, 920 feet in length and of varying widths generally lying from east to west as demarcated at site wherein khasra numbers of the land are given. Village Ghanour Jattan in which part of the land covered by that notification is situate has been described therein as being in tahsil Sangrur. An objection has been taken in that writ petition about the said village being in fact a part of tahsil Sunam. In reply to that objection it has been stated in paragraph 1 of the affidavit of the Executive Engineer, Drainage Construction Division, Sangrur, filed in that case that village Ghanour jattan was in tahsil Sangrur at the time of the preparation of the land acquisition papers, but subsequently due to creation of a new tahsil at Sunam, that village later became part of that new tahsil. As already stated the notification in that case is of October 3, 1972. The notification in the instant case was published on October 15, 1971. The above -mentioned averment in the written statement of the Government in the connected, case shows that tahsil Suanm did not exist earlier and had been carved out sometimes in 1971 -72. It has not been disputed by the learned counsel for the appellants that the village of the appellants was originally in tahsil Patiala, and that it has become part of tahsil Sunam only after this new tahsil was carved out. The mere fact, therefore that at the time of filing the writ petition or even earlier at the time of filing the objections under section 5 -A of the Act, village Fatehgarh Chhana was part of Sunam tahsil does not make the least difference when the said village was admittedly a part of tahsil Patiala earlier. The object of giving sufficient particulars of the property in a notification under section 4 (1) of the Act so as to identify the property is that the owners thereof may have notice of the proposed acquisition proceedings so that they may, if they so desire, prefer objections under section 5 -A. Once it is not disputed that the appellants not only came to know of the notification, but also preferred all possible objections under section 5 -A within time, the hypertechnical objection as to misdescription of the village which existed in only one of the two tahsils loses all its importance.
(3.) MR . Y.P. Gandhi, the learned counsel for the appellants, cited before us the judgments of the Supreme Court in Khub Chand and others v. State of Rajasthan : AIR 1967 SC 1074, and in Sm. Gunwant Kaur and others v. Municipal Committee, Bhatinda : AIR 1970 SC 802, and the Full Bench judgment of the Allahabad High Court in Bahori Lal v. Land Acquisition Officer : AIR 1970 All 414, as well as the judgment of a learned Single Judge of this Court (R.S. Sarkana, J.) in Messrs New Ludhiana Industrial Corporation v. The State of Punjab etc., 1971 Cur LJ 436, in support of the proposition that a notification under section 4 which does not set out sufficient information required by the land -owners is not a valid notification. There is no quarrel with that proposition of law, but it has to be seen in each case whether there has in fact been any material defect in the notification under section 4 so as to deprive any land -owner of his right to prefer objections under section 5 -A or if there is only some hypertechnical defect in the notification which neither goes to the root of the matter, nor affects the rights of any person. We asked Mr. Gandhi if he could cite a single case before us in which any defect of the kind pointed out in the present case was held to invalidate the acquisition proceedings in spite of the fact that the affected person had actually preferred all possible objections against the notification. He was unable to cite any such case. On the other hand Mr. M.M. Punchhi, the learned counsel for the State, placed before us the observations of their Lordship of the Supreme Court in Bahu Barkya. Thakur v. State of Bombay (now Maharashtra), AIR 1960 SC 1903, wherein it has been held that defect in a notification under section 4 is not fatal to the validity of the acquisition proceedings when the purpose of acquisition has been investigated under section 5 -A (or in the case of acquisition for a company under section 40) after the notification under section 4. The judgment of the Supreme Court in Babu Barkya Thakur's case (supra), in our opinion, concludes the issues raised before us. In this view of the matter it is impossible to find any fault with the judgment of the learned Single Judge which is affirmed and the appeal is dismissed though without any order as to costs.;