Dharam
Pal Goel Vs. State of Haryana & Ors [1997] INSC 23 (13 January 1997)
K.
RAMASWAMY, G.T. NANAVATI
ACT:
HEAD NOTE:
O R D E
R
Leave granted.
This
appeal by special leave arises from the judgment of the Punjab & Haryana
High Court, made on September
25, 1993 in Writ
Petition No.2960 of 1990. The original appellant, Dharam Pal Goel (herein after
referred to as the `appellant') had purchased 1 bigha, 12 biswas of land in Khasra
No.718/2/2 Min and 714/1/1 Min situated in the revenue estate of village Khandsa,
Tahsil and District Gurgaon. The appellant constructed a school building in
October 1985 on the land. The respondents had issued notification on January 30, 1989 under Section 4(1) of the Land
Acquisition Act (for short, the `Act') for public purpose, namely, for
development of the sectors. Declaration under Section 6 of the Act was
published on January
25, 1990. Thereafter,
appellant filed a writ petition in the High Court contending that the
acquisition of the land appellant intended to serve another public purpose,
namely, establishing a school for the children of the locality, The High Court
dismissed the writ petition. Thus, this appeal by special law.
When
the matter had come up on May 10, 1996 for hearing, the Court directed that an
Officer to be named by the respondents would make an inspection and submit a
detailed report as to the actual land needed for school building and for
playground and to ascertain to what extent responsible land is required to be
released for the purpose of school and playground causing no disturbance to the
scheme already evolved. In furtherance thereof a decision was taken by the
Director of Urban Estates, Haryana which has been communicated to the learned
counsel for the respondents.
The
report relevant for the purpose runs thus | "..... the width of the greed
belt along the Jaipur-Delhi national highway is 50 m and non-buildable one were
to be preserved then 617 sq. yards and land coming under the plan is also part
of the released land need to be acquired.
The
school falls immediately by the side of the national highway, which has very
fast moving traffic. The purpose of keeping the restricted zone along the
school roads is to provide a service lane besides other facilities and for
undertaking tree plantation to act a buffer to contain pollution caused by the
vehicular traffic.
Leaving
any more area now would effect the alignment of service road that may have to
be built subsequently for regulated traffic flow along the busy national
highway. Since containing 2066 sq. yards has already been released this results
in greed belt/non- buildable zone of 135 wide along national highway instead of
165` as per the development plan in the larger interest, no more land should be
considered for release.
This
is being suggested despite the fact that for a primary school, HUDA earmarks
min. 1 acre land that normative position is not being recommended to in view of
the location of the appellants site being next to national highway." In
the light of the extract of the report, the only question for consideration is
| whether the land purchased by the appellant serves any public purpose and is,
therefore, required to be denotified from the acquisition? It is seen that the
report indicates that the school is situated in between the National Highway and adjacent to the proposed buffer
road is to facilitate plantation of the trees to contain pollution caused by
the vehicular traffic.
Though
the alignment needs 165' of land requires to be acquired and, therefore, that
part of the land cannot be released from acquisition. In view of the fact that
the officers of the respondents have inspected the place and given any
direction to the respondents to delete a part of the land belonging to the
appellant.
The
appeal is accordingly, dismissed. No costs.
Back