# NARENDRA BAHADUR SINGH AND ANR v. STATE OF U.P. AND ORS

- **Citation:** [1977] 2 S.C.R. 226
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1976-11-26
- **Case number:** Civil Appeal No. 297 of 1976
- **Bench:** H. R. Khanna, V. R. Krishna Iyer
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/narendra-bahadur-singh-and-anr-v-state-of-u-p-and-ors-7030
- **Pages:** 6

## Headnote

U.P. Land Acquisition (Rehabilitation of Refugees) Act 1948 Sr.c. 2(7), 6,
7(1)-Notification for acquiring land for a society of refugees from Pakistan
-Whether acquisition notification can be struck down on hypertechnical grounds
or whether substalltial compliance suffecient'-ln the ubsence of averments in
a writ petition on a question of fact whethe1i petitioner can be \allowed to raisd
a ground based on assumption of such facts.
U .P. Government issued a notification under Section 7 (!) of the U .P. Land
Acquisition (Rehabilitation of Refugees) Act, 1948 for acquiring the land
belonging to the appellant for the purpose of Sufferers Cooperatiyc Housing
Society.
The Society entered into an agreement with· the Govcrnme.nt under
sectiop. 6 of the Act.
The Land Acquisition Officer determined the amount of
compensation for the acquired land.
The appellants challenged the \'alidity
of the said notification on the following grounds :
1. The notification did not properly specify
the
land sought
to
be
acquired.
2. The notification was ultra vires the Act because it sought to acquire
land for the rehabilitation of displaced persons and not for the rehabilitation of refugees.
3. The notification was not in accorclance with the provisions of section
7(1) of the Act.
The single Judge of the High Court did not go into the first ground but
accepted the second and third grounds and quashed the notification. He held
tha* according to the definition of refugees in section 2(7) a refugee is a person
who has migrated from Pakistan to any place in the U.P. and has been since
td!en residing in U.P. and that there was nothing. to show that the displaced
persons who are the members of the Society had settled in U.P. While accepting the third ground the learned Judge held that section 7 ( 1)
requires
to
indicate in the notification that i:t had decided to acquire the land.
However,
the notification did not mention the expression "decided".
On an appeal, the Division Bench disagreed with the conclusions of the
Single Judge and allowed the appeal. The Division Bench held that the notification was substantially in accordance with the section 7 ( 1) and that the members of the Society consisted of refugees.
The Division Bench also held that
the notification w.as not vague and it properlv ~pecified the land sought to be
acquired.
In an appeal by Special Leave the appellants repeated the 3 ground,,.
Dismissing the appeal
HELD : 1. The ground about the members of the Society not being refugees has
not been taken in the Writ Petition at all.
The question whether
those members have settled in U.P. is essentially' one of tact. Jn the
absence of any
averment in the
writ
petition the
material facts
having bearing on the point could nob be brought on record. A
party seeking to challenge the validity of a notification on a ground
involving questions of fact should make necessary averments of fact
before it can assail the notification on that ground.
(229 F-H1
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N. B. SINGH v. U.P. STATE (Khanna, J.)
227
2. The recital in the earlier part of the notification as well as the operative part of the notification that the land sball be deemed to have
been acquired permanently and shall vest in the State
Government
lends clear support to the conclusion tbat the State
Government
decided to acquire the land and the order of acquisition was me_rely
an implementation of that decision. The fact that the word decided
has not been used in the notification would not prove fatal when the
entire tenor of the notification reveals the decision of the State Govt.
to acquire land.
The court would not strike down a notification for
acquisition on hypertechnicality; what is needed is substantial compliance with law and the impugned notification clearly satisfies that
requirement.
[230 D-FJ
3. The contention that the notification in question is vague is not substantiated.
The notification makes an express reference to the site
plan.
[230 G-231 A]
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## Text

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226
NARENDRA BAHADUR SINGH AND ANR.
v.
STATE OF U.P. AND ORS.
November 26, 1976
[H. R. KHANNA AND V. R. KRISHNA IYER, JJ.]
U.P. Land Acquisition (Rehabilitation of Refugees) Act 1948 Sr.c. 2(7), 6,
7(1)-Notification for acquiring land for a society of refugees from Pakistan
-Whether acquisition notification can be struck down on hypertechnical grounds
or whether substalltial compliance suffecient'-ln the ubsence of averments in
a writ petition on a question of fact whethe1i petitioner can be \allowed to raisd
a ground based on assumption of such facts.
U .P. Government issued a notification under Section 7 (!) of the U .P. Land
Acquisition (Rehabilitation of Refugees) Act, 1948 for acquiring the land
belonging to the appellant for the purpose of Sufferers Cooperatiyc Housing
Society.
The Society entered into an agreement with· the Govcrnme.nt under
sectiop. 6 of the Act.
The Land Acquisition Officer determined the amount of
compensation for the acquired land.
The appellants challenged the \'alidity
of the said notification on the following grounds :
1. The notification did not properly specify
the
land sought
to
be
acquired.
2. The notification was ultra vires the Act because it sought to acquire
land for the rehabilitation of displaced persons and not for the rehabilitation of refugees.
3. The notification was not in accorclance with the provisions of section
7(1) of the Act.
The single Judge of the High Court did not go into the first ground but
accepted the second and third grounds and quashed the notification. He held
tha* according to the definition of refugees in section 2(7) a refugee is a person
who has migrated from Pakistan to any place in the U.P. and has been since
td!en residing in U.P. and that there was nothing. to show that the displaced
persons who are the members of the Society had settled in U.P. While accepting the third ground the learned Judge held that section 7 ( 1)
requires
to
indicate in the notification that i:t had decided to acquire the land.
However,
the notification did not mention the expression "decided".
On an appeal, the Division Bench disagreed with the conclusions of the
Single Judge and allowed the appeal. The Division Bench held that the notification was substantially in accordance with the section 7 ( 1) and that the members of the Society consisted of refugees.
The Division Bench also held that
the notification w.as not vague and it properlv ~pecified the land sought to be
acquired.
In an appeal by Special Leave the appellants repeated the 3 ground,,.
Dismissing the appeal
HELD : 1. The ground about the members of the Society not being refugees has
not been taken in the Writ Petition at all.
The question whether
those members have settled in U.P. is essentially' one of tact. Jn the
absence of any
averment in the
writ
petition the
material facts
having bearing on the point could nob be brought on record. A
party seeking to challenge the validity of a notification on a ground
involving questions of fact should make necessary averments of fact
before it can assail the notification on that ground.
(229 F-H1
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N. B. SINGH v. U.P. STATE (Khanna, J.)
227
2. The recital in the earlier part of the notification as well as the operative part of the notification that the land sball be deemed to have
been acquired permanently and shall vest in the State
Government
lends clear support to the conclusion tbat the State
Government
decided to acquire the land and the order of acquisition was me_rely
an implementation of that decision. The fact that the word decided
has not been used in the notification would not prove fatal when the
entire tenor of the notification reveals the decision of the State Govt.
to acquire land.
The court would not strike down a notification for
acquisition on hypertechnicality; what is needed is substantial compliance with law and the impugned notification clearly satisfies that
requirement.
[230 D-FJ
3. The contention that the notification in question is vague is not substantiated.
The notification makes an express reference to the site
plan.
[230 G-231 A]
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CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 297 of 1976.
C
Appeal by Special Leave from the Judgment and Order dated the
16-10-74 of the Aliahabad High Court in Special Appeal No. 169/72.
S. T. Desai, M. K. Garg, K. B. Rohtagi, V. K. Jain and M. M.
Kaslzyap, for the Appellant.
0. P. Rana for Respondents 1-4.
V. M. Tarkunde, Pramod Swamp and R. S. Verma for Respondent No. 5.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
KHANNA, J.-This appeal by special leave is against the judgment
of a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court,
reversing on
appeal the decision of learned single Judge, whereby notification dated
April 23, 1966 issued by the State Government under section 7 (1)
of the U.P. Land Acquisition (Rehabilitation of Refugees) Act, 1948
(herdnafter referred to as the Act) had been quashed. As a result
of the decision of the Division Bench, the writ petition filed by the
appellants to quash that notification stood dismissed.
The Sufferers' Co-operative Housing Society, Jaunpur, respondent,
applied to the Uttar Pradesh Government in 1955 for acquiring four
acres of land for the purpose of erecting houses, shops and workshops
for the rehabilitation of the· refugees who were members of that society.
At the instance of the State Government, the society deposited
a sum of Rs. 15,000 towards the cost of the land to be acquired. In
1964, the society entered into an agreement with the State Government
under section 6 of the Act.
The State Government thereafter published on April 23, 1966, the impugned notification and the same reads
as under:
"Under sub-section (l) of section 7 of the U.P. Land
Acquisition (Rehabilitation of Refugees) Act No. XXVI of
1948, the Governor of Uttar Pradesh is pleased to declare
that he is satisfied that the land mentioned in the Schedule
is needed and is suitable for the erection of houses, shops and
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1977] 2 S.C.R.
workshops for the rehabilitation of displaced persons and/
or for the provision of amenities directly connected therewith.
All the persons interested in the land in question are, therefore, required to appear personally or by duly authorised agent before the
Compensation Officer of the Distt. at Jaunpur on the twenty seventh
day of April 1966, with necessary documentary or other evidence for
the determination of the amount of compensation under section 11 of
the Act.
The Collector of Jaunpur is directed to take possession of the
alioresaid land fourteen days after the publication or this notice in the
official gazette.
Upon the publication of this notice, the aforesaid land shall be
deemed to have been acquired permanently and shall vest absolutelv
in the State Government free from all encumbrances from the. begin~
ning of the day on which the notice is so published.
Di~tt. Pargana
Mauza
SCHEDULE
Municipality
Cantonment,
Town area or
Notified area
Mohalla
Diwan Shah Kabir alias
Tartala
Pargana Have Ii, Tahsil
Jaunpur Municipal Area
Jaunpur
Plot No.
Area
154
152/1
152/2
149
153
1,00
2 shops No. 6 aod 7
For what purpose required : for the rehabilitation of displaced persons.
Note : A copy of the site plan may be inspected at the office of the
Collector, Jaunpur."
Subsequent to that notification, the Land Acquisition Officer determined the amount of compensation for the land and shops
to be
acquired at a little over rupees forty one thousand.
The balance of
the amount to be paid as compensation was thereafter deposited by the
society.
On April 10, 1970 the appellants, claiming to be the owners of a
part of the land sought to be acquired, filed petition under article 226
of the Constitution of India in the Allahabad High Court with
a
prayer for quashing the impugned notification.
The notification was
assailed on the following three grounds :
(1) The notiftcation did not properly specify the lands
sought to be acquired;
(2) The notification was ultra vires the Act inasmuch as
it sought to acquire lands for the rehabilitation of
the displaced persons and not tor the rehabilitation of
refugees; and
(3) The notification was not in accordance with the provisions of section 7 ( 1) of the Act.
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229
The learned signie Judge, while allowing the writ petition, did not
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go into the first ground.
He, however, accepte~ th~ second
and
third grounds and in the result quashed the notification.
On
the
second ground, the learned Judge referred to the definition in section
2(7) of the Act, according to which refugee means any person who
was a resident in any place forming part of Pakistan and wh~, on
account of partition of civil disturbances or the fear of such disturbance, has on or after the first day of March 194 7 migrated to any
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place in the U.P. and has been since residing there. It was observed
that there was nothing to show that the displaced persons for whose
benefit the land in question was being acquired had settled in Uttar
Pradesh.
Regarding the third ground, the learned Judge expressed
the view that the notification under section 7 ( 1) of the Act required
that the State Government should indicate in the notification that it
had decided to acquire the land.
As the word "decided" was not
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mentioned in the notification, the notification was held to be not in
accordance with law.
On appeal, the Division Bench of the High
Court disagreed with the learned single Judge on both the grounds on
which he had quashed the notification.
It was held that the notification was substantially in ·accordance with section 7 ( 1) of the Act.
It was further observed that the society for whose benefit the land
was being acqqired consisted of refugees.
Dealing with the
first
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ground, namely, that the notification was vague as it did not properly
specify the land sought to be acquired, the Division Bench held that
all the necessary particulars in respect of the land sought to be acquired
had been given.
In the result, the appeal was allowed and the writ
petition was dismissed.
In appeal before us, Mr. Desai has assailed the decision of the
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Division Bench on all the three grounds and has urged that the impugned notification is liable to be quashed on each· of those grounds.
We shall accordingly deal with those grounds.
So far as th~· ground is concerned that the persons for whose rehabilitation the land is sought to be acquired are not refugees,
Mr.
Desai could not in spite of our query refer us to any paragraph in the
writ petition wherein the above ground had been taken.
All the
same,. he submitted that as the question had been allowed to be agitated before the High Court, we should not debar the appellants from
advancing arguments on that score.
The submission made by the
learned counsel in this behalf is that there is nothing to show that the
persons for whose benefit the land is being acquired arc settled
in
Uttar Pradesh.
In this respect wc are of the view that the question
as to whether those persons are settled in U ttar Pradesh or not is
essentially one of fact.
In the absence of any averment in the writ
petition that the person concerned were not settled in Uttar Pradesh,
it is obvious that the material facts having bearing on this point could
not be brought on record.
A party seeking to challenge the validity
of a notification on a ground involving questions of fact should make
necessary averments of fact before it can assail the notification
on
that ground.
As such we find it difficult to sustain the contention of
Mr. Desai that the persons for whose benefit the land is being acquired
were not settled in Uttar Pradesh.
Apart from that, we find that
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SUPREME COURT REPORTS
[1977] 2 S.C.R.
ground No. 13 taken in the writ petition proceeds upon the assumption that the persons for whose benefit the land was being acquired
were in fact refugees.
It forther appears from the judgment of
the
Division Bench that there was hardly any dispute before the Division
Bench on the point that the respondent society, namely,
Sufferers'
Co-operative Housing Society, consists of refugees and has refugees
as its members.
Coming to the second ground taken by the appellants that
the
notification was not in conformity with section 7 (1) of the Act inasmuch as it did not state that the State Government had decided to
acquire the land in dispute, we are of the opinion that a reading of
the notification \Vhich has been reproduced above leaves no manner
of doubt that the State Government had decided to acquir~ the land.
It i!> stated in the notification that the Governor of Uttar Prade~h is
pleased to declare that he is satisfied that the land mentioned in the
schedule is needed and is suitable for the erection of houses, shops
and workshops for the rehabilitation of displaced persons and/ or for
the provision of amenities directly connected therewith.
The notification further proceeds to state that the land in question shall be
deemed to have been acquired permanently and shall vest absolutely
in the State Government free from all encumbrances from the date
of the notification.
The recital in the earlier part of the notification as
well as the operative part of the notification that the land shall
be
deemed to have been acquired permanently and shall vest in
the
State Government lend clear support for the conclusion that the State
Government decJded to acquire the land and the order of acquisition
was merely an implementation of that decision.
The fact that the
word "decided" has not been used in the notification would
not
prove fatal when the entire tenor of the notification reveals the decision of the State Government to acquire the land and is consistent
only with the hypothesis of such a decision having been arrived at.
The courts should be averse to strike down a notification for acquisition of land on fanciful grounds based on hypertechnicality.
What
is needed is substantial compliance with law.
The impugned notification, in our opinion, clearly satisfies that requirement.
Lastly, we may deal with the contention advanced on behalf of
the appellants that the notification in question is vague. It is pointed
out by Mr. Desai that the total area of the land comprised in field
numbers mentionad in the notification is 1.26 acres, while the actual
area which is sought to be acquired is one acre.
The learned counsel accordingly< urges that it is not possible to find out tho particular
portions of those fields which are sought to be acquired.
As such.
the notification is stated to be vague and thus not in conformity with
law.
Our attention has also been invited by Mr. Desaid to the report
dated June 23, 1971 of the Tehsildar, who was deputed to deliver
possession of the acquired land to the sor.1iety.
In the said report
the Tehsildar stated that he found it difficult to find out as to which
part of the fields mentioned in1 the notification were acquired.
In
this respect we find that the report of the Tehsilder itself indicates
that when he went to the spot to deliver possession of the acquired
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N. D. SJ);GH v. u. P. STATE (Khanna, J.)
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]and, he did not take with him the correct plan of the said land.
The
impugned notification makes an express reference to the site-plan.
An
affidavitj has been filed on behalf of the society and that affidaV:it makes
it plain that the area of the land which has been acquired comes to
exactly one acre.
There appears to be no cogent ground to interfere with the finding of the Division Bench of the High Court that
the impugned .notification has not been shown. to be vague.
We, therefore, find no infirmity in the impugned notification.
The
appe_al fails and is dismissed but in the circumstances with no order
as to costs.
Before we conclude. we \vould like to observe that the case before
us tells a sad tale of d~lays in a matter which on sheer humanitarian
grounds; needed to be attended to with expedition.
The case,
as
would appear from the. above, pertains to the acquisition of land with
a view to rehabilitate refugees who were uprooted from their hearths
and homes in areas now in Pakistan because of disturbances anJ fear
of disturbances which marred the partition of the counti:y.
The
refugees for this purpose formed a society, and applied to the administration in 1955 for acquisition of land so that they could erect shops
and workshops on that land with a view to earn their livelihood.
It
took the administration 11 years thereafter to issue necessary notification for the acquisition of the land in dispute.
Four years were
thereafter spent because possession of the land could not be delivered.
The only attempt made to deliver possession proved infructuous as the
Tehsildar entrusted with this task took a wrong plan.
From 1970
till today the delivery of possession remained stayed because of the
writ proceedings initiated by the appellants. ' One can only hope
that now that the final curtain has been dropped, the matter would be
.attended to with the necessary promptitude.
lP.H.P.
Appeal dismissed.
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