Daily hearing from Sept 12,UP told to file counter-affidavit

The high court did not allow the plea of private builders to be made a party in the matter. However,they have an option of bringing their views before the court by becoming ‘interveners’.

As the bench — comprising Justices S U Khan,Ashok Bhushan and V K Shukla — took up the matter,it came to light that the state had not yet filed its counter-affidavits against petitions filed by Patwari villagers. The court then asked the state to file its counter-affidavits on all petitions. The Greater Noida Authority has already filed its counter-affidavit in connection with Patwari village.

In all,491 petitions have been clubbed with the main petition of Gajraj Singh against the state of UP — the lead case dealing with the acquisition of 589 hectares of land in Patwari village.

“The court will hear these cases on a day-to-day basis after September 12. It will first hear the case related to Patwari village. Other villages and petitions will follow,” said Pankaj Dubey,counsel of petitioners from Patwari.

The matter was to be heard by a three-judge bench on August 17. But the judge heading the bench at that time,Justice R K Agarwal,recused himself as his son was representing one of the private builders.

A new bench was then constituted with Justice S U Khan replacing Justice Agarwal.

A large number of petitioners approached the court after a division bench had ordered all petitions related to land acquisition in Noida and Greater Noida to be clubbed together.

“Many of them are essentially for compensation but the issue of acquisition of land using the urgency clause without giving owners a chance to hear their views is also an important part of the petitions,” said Saurabh Basu,a lawyer representing some petitioners.

On July 26,the division bench of Justice Amitava Lala and Ashok Srivastava had referred the cases to the larger bench after the state government pointed out that another division bench of the same court had upheld acquisition of land in Patwari using the urgency clause in 2008.

However,on July 19,a division bench of Justices Sunil Ambwani and S S Singh quashed the acquisition.

This had led to two contradictory orders on the same issue by two different benches of the same high court. Hence,the matter was referred to a larger bench.