Court No. - 33
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 25131 of 2018
Petitioner :- Vijay Pal Kaushik Respondent :- State Of U P And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Krishna Ji Shukla
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Anjali Upadhya
Hon'ble Manoj Misra,J. Hon'ble Ved Prakash Vaish,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner; learned Standing Counsel for respondents 1 and 2 and Sri B.B. Jauhari for respondents 3 and 4.
The petitioner had raised a claim before the respondents for allotment of land to the extent of 10% of his acquired land in the light of Full Bench decision of this Court in the case of Gajraj and others Vs. State of U.P. and others : 2011 (11) ADJ 1.
In the meantime, the Apex Court in its decision dated 14th May, 2015 rendered in Savitri Devi and others Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and others, reported in 2015 (7) SCC 21, held that the decision in Gajraj's case was peculiar to the facts of that case and it should not form precedent for future cases. Following the decision rendered in the case of Savitri Devi and others (supra), in Khatoon and others Vs. State of U.P. Through Principal Secretary and others reported in 2018 (2) JT 305, the Apex court held that persons who had not challenged acquisition proceedings and had let it attain finality would not be entitled to the benefit of general directions issued in Gajraj's case and that the directions issued in Gajraj's case would be applicable only to those who had asserted their rights by filing petitions. In Khatoon's case (supra), the Apex Court therefore took a view that the petitioners before it would have no right to claim allotment to the extent of 10% of their acquired land by claiming parity with those who had filed petitions and were covered by decision in Gajraj's case. However, the apex Court left it to the discretion of the authorities to consider the grievance of the parties concerned.
Relying on the subsequent decision of the Apex Court in Khatoon's case (supra), the representation of the petitioner for allotment of land equivalent to 10% of the acquired area has been rejected by the impugned order dated 29th April, 2018 on the basis of a detailed report dated 23rd April, 2018 which indicated that the case of the petitioner was not covered by Gajraj's case and was rather governed by subsequent decisions of the Apex Court in the case of Savitri Devi (supra) and Khatoon (supra).
Learned counsel for the petitioner has challenged the impugned order by stating that no reason has been assigned while rejecting the claim of the petitioner even though in Savitri Devi's case (supra) it was provided that the State would have discretion to consider the prayer of the land losers.
Sri B.B. Jauhari, who has appeared on behalf of the respondents 3 and 4, has placed before this Court decision dated 20th July, 2018, passed by Division Bench of this Court in Writ C No.23655 of 2018, which is reproduced here-in-below:
"Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Ramendra Pratap Singh, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.3.
The petitioner has filed this writ petition claiming parity in the payment of compensation for its acquired land as per the decision of the Full Bench of this Court in the case of Gajraj and others Vs. State of U.P. and others, 2011 (11) ADJ 1.
The land of the petitioner was acquired vide notification dated 23.07.2009 issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act. This notification was not part of the Gajraj's case decided by the Full Bench. Therefore, petitioner is not entitled to the benefit which has been extended by the Court as per the Gajraj's case.
The Full Bench by the aforesaid decision has directed for grant of 10 per cent of the acquired land in the form of developed land to the petitioner who have filed petitions before the Court.
Certain other tenure holders thereafter filed writ petition claiming similar benefits but those petitions were dismissed by the High Court. The Division Bench in the case of Mange Ram Vs. State of U.P. and others, Writ Petition No. 7521 of 2016 vide judgment and order dated 01.08.2016 held that refusal to grant additional developed land to the tenure holders is neither arbitrary or discretionary.
The aforesaid decision of the High Court was upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Smt. Khatoon and others vide judgment and order dated 15.02.2018 and it was clarified that the benefit of the Gajraj's case would be available only to the persons who were before the High Court and not to the non-petitioners.
In view of the above, the benefit of Gajraj's case is only available to the persons who have filed writ petitions before the High Court which were decided at that time. The distinction has thus been made between the land owners who filed the writ petitions along with the Gajraj and the land owners who did not file any petition at that time.
The petitioner herein had not filed any writ petition earlier and as such is not entitled to the benefit which was granted by the Full Bench in the case of Gajraj.
In view of aforesaid facts and circumstances, the writ petition lacks merit and is dismissed."
We find that the case of the petitioner is squarely covered by the decision of this Court dated 20th July, 2018, passed in Writ C No.23655 of 2018 as extracted above, inasmuch as, the petitioner was not one of those who had challenged the acquisition as was in the case of Gajraj. Rather had let the acquisition proceeding attain finality.
Under the circumstances, since the petitioner would have no right to claim allotment of land to the extent of 10% of the area acquired from him, the petitioner would have no right to challenge the decision of the respondents refusing such allotment. The writ petition is therefore dismissed.
Order Date :- 31.7.2018. Rks.
(V.P. Vaish, J.) (Manoj Misra, J.)