(1) This is a matter that arises under the land acquisition act, 1894 (hereinafter called 'the act'). The short question is whether the substance of the gazette notification mandated to be published locally under Section 4 (1) of the act can permissibly be published subsequent to the gazette notification.

(2) The petitioners, about ten in number, challenged in this writ petition the proposed acquisition of their house - plots situate in ranga reddy district. These lands were sought to be acquired by the railways for a public purpose of laying a railway - line from sanatnagar to moulali by passing secunderabad railway station. For that purpose, the government of andhra pradesh had published, as required to be done under Section 4 (1) of the act, a statutory notification in part i of the andhra pradesh gazette dated 14 - 12 - 78. Acting in further compliance of the latter part of section 4 (i) of the act, the local publication of that gazette notification was made on 7 - 6 - 79. Is the local publication in compliance with the second part of Section 4 (1) of the act ?. Section 4 (1) of the act reads thus : ''whenever it appears to the appropriate government that land in any locality is needed or is likely to be needed for any public purpose, a notification to that effect shall be published in the official gazette, and the collector shall cause public notice of the substance of such notification to be given at convenient place in the said locality. " although armies of words have marched upon this section, peace has not yet smiled on this poor section. A strange fatality has dogged the true meaning of this section. To this day, its exact scope is eluding the firm grasp of judicial pronouncements.

(3) No less a judge than krishna iyer j. , whose judicial concern for the poor, weak and the wretched is well - known described in his supreme court pronouncements the land acquisition act, 1894 as an act depriving the rights of the land - owners. That description in law of interpretation calls for strict interpretation. Krishna iyer j , had therefore, called following maxwell for strict interpretation of its provisions. Now a constitution bench of the supreme court in somavanth vs. State of punjab ruled that full compliance with the requirements of Section 4 (1) of the act is the first step the state should take for the exercise of its power of eminent domain under the act. The supreme court, consequently held that wherever that step had not been taken by the state as required by the act, the acquisition proceedings should fail in their entirety. Any failure to publish the gazette notification would, according to this view amount to a non - compliance with the provisions of Section 4 (1) of the act and would vitiate the entire land acquisition proceedings. According to the same view, the supreme court also ruled that the same legal consequences would flow from any act of total failure of the state to publish the substsnce of the gazette notification in the locality. These propositions of law are wellsettled and are well accepted. I have not come across any responsible difference of opinion on the above propositions of law.

(4) The question that is really giving rise to different, some times even conficting, answers is the question as to the period of time within which the local publication of the gazette notification should be made. Some judges hold the view that the land acquisition act requires the local publication to be made simultaneous with the gazette notification while other judges hold that local publication need not necessarily be made simultaneous with the gazette notification so long it is made within a reasonable time. The question is which one of these views is correct. The answer to this question should depend upon the language of section 4 (i) and s. 5 - a (i) of the act.

(5) A reading of Section 4 (1) of the act shows that the local publication cannot be anterior to the date of the gazette notification, because it is the substance of the gazette notification that is required to be locally published. The starting point is, therefore, easily fixed. That section requires publication in the locality also does not admit any doubt. The question around which the present controversy rages is, within what period of time from the date of the gazette notification the local publication of the substance of the gazette notification should be made. It is the point of terminus that is difficult to fix. This question has been differently answered in different judgments. But i beg leave of those honourable judges with whose views i have the misfortune to differ from, to state gather categorically that that question can only admit, in my view, one answer and only one answer. In my humble opinion, that answer is a local publication, according to the intendment and purpose of section 4, (1) of the act, has to be made simultaneously with the gazette notification. Local publication which the law prescribes as mandatory under section 4 (i) of the act cannot be held to serve no purpose. Section 4 (1) of the act is intended to serve a high statutory purpose. The statutory purpose underlying the local publication is primarily to put the landowners whose lands are proposed to be acquired on notice. The act requires the land - owners to be put on notice firstly to enable the landowners to exercise their right of objection granted to them under s. 5 - a (1) of the act and secondly to warn them not to make any improvements on the land. Section 5 - a (1) of the act reads thus:

"any person interested in any land which has been notified under sec. 4, sub - section (1) as being needed or likely to be needed for a public purpose or for a company may, within thirty days after the issue of the notification, object to the acquisition of the land or of any land in the locality, as the case may be,"

the act in the form of sec. 5 - a (1) affords any person interested in the land which has been notified to be acquired under section 4 sub - section (1) of the act, an opportunity to object to the acquisition of the land or any other land in the locality within thirty days after the issue of the notification. This right could be exercised by the land - owner only if and after the land - owner comes to know of the fact of the proposed acquisition. Now, the local publication is required by sec. 4 (1) of the act to be made in addition to the gazette notification, because the largely illiterate community of the tillers of the soil, whose lands are proposed to be acquired, are not likely to be aware through the gazette notification alone that their lands are proposed for acquisition. And without such knowledge about the acquisition proposals, the owners of the lands proposed to be acquired cannot exercise their guaranteed right to object under section 5 - a (1) of the act. Local publication is, therefore, intended to intimate, inform the land - owners of the proposed acquisition. There are among the villagers very few who read the state gazette published from a far away metropolis. A state gazette is not even a daily news paper although some of the. Daily news papers are no better than state gazettes. A gazette published from a place like hyderabad is not likely to attract the attention of the owners of the lands situated in those far - flung areas of state. If such an owner of the land is made to depend solely upon the state gazette notification, for the acquisition of his knowledge and for the exercise of his right to object granted by sec. 5 - a (1) of the act, that right to object would become illusory. It cannot in ninety - nine out of a hundred cases effectively be exercised by the land - owner and at any rate, within the short period of thirty days from the date of gazette notification, statutorily limited. By the time the concerned land - owner comes to know of it, the thirty - days period might had elapsed and his right to object might had been lost. For want of knowledge a right conferred and a benefit intended would both be lost. The legislature must have known these realities of rural life. Acting on its knowledge of these prevailing conditions, the legislature should be taken to have provided for an additional source of information to the rural people in addition to the gazette notification. This can only be the purpose of the local publication. The insistence upon a local publication of the substance of the gazette notification is otherwise unexplainable and unintelligible. The very fact that the statute insisted upon the substance of the gazette notification to be published in the localiity where the lands - proposed to be acquired are is a sure indication that the statute designed the local publication as an effective means to act as a notice to the land - owners for arousing and enabling them to exer cise their statutory right under sec. 5 - a (l) of the act. If the above were the real purpose of sec. 5 - a (l) of the act and the statutory scheme the local publication in order to be effective should be simultaneous with the gazette notification. Thus alone the land - owner would be put on notice. Thus alone he could exercise his statutory right of objection guaranteed to him under sec. 5 - a (1) of the act within thirty - days from the date of the gazette notification. Now, as we have seen above, the statutory right to object under sec. 5a (1) of the act would be available to the land - owner only for thirty - days and would be lost to the landowner after thirty - days from the date of publication of the gazette notification without any reference whatsoever to the date of local publication. In those circumstances, where the exercise of a statutory right under sec. 5 - a (1) of the act is limited to thirty - days and is dependent upon the knowledge gained from local publication, the local publication if permitted to be made any time after the gazette notification, not necessarily simultaneously with the gazette notification, the right would either be lost or cut into. To the above argument it would make no difference whether the local publication was made one - day, one - week or one - month after the gazette notification was made. In any of the events the statutory right granted under sec. 5 - a (l) of the act would either be lost or infringed by the inaction of the land acquisition officer. Permitting the land acquisition officer by this court to destroy or alter the statutory right of the land - owner guaranteed under sec. 5 - a (1) of the act would be doing something without any statutory basis. I know no principle or authority to permit a statutory scheme to be altered or a statutory right to be destroyed by the mere exercise of an unauthorised will of the executive. There is no statutory provision permitting the land acquisition officer to take away or to trifle with or cut into the right guaranteed to the landowner by the legislature under section 5 - a (1) of the act to make objections within thirty - days. A court in those circumstances, cannot uphold the delayed local publication except by itself resorting to the impermissible and naked judicial - law - making. To hold that the land acquisition officer can make the local publication any time subsequent to the gazette notification under Section 4 (1) of the act provided be does so with judicial support would defeat the express purpose of the act. The question freely asked and freely answered whether the land acquisition officer, has a reasonable cause or excuse in a particular case not to make the local publication simultaneously would be a wholly irrelevant and wrong question. Under Section 4 (1) of the act there can never be justifiable or unjustifiable delay. There can be no delay at all. Considering the purposes underlying Section 4 (1) of the act read with section 5 - a (1) of the act, it should be said that the courts would be assuming the role of legislature in ruling that the land acquisition officer can be excused from making simultaneous publication. We must remember that we are in the realm of interpreting a statute that provides for the taking away of the rights of the farmers and other land - owners. We cannot, i believe, be charitable with the rights of other. In the absence of any provision conferring authority on the courts to embark upon this speculative investigation as to whether the land acquisition officer has a reasonable cause or not to publish the local publication after the gazette notification, i can only hold that question can never arise for the consideration of the law courts under the provisions of the act. I am clearly aware that the above reasoning would lead to only one conclusion requiring local publication to be simultaneous with the gazette notification. But that is a conclusion, which, in my humble opinion, is made both imperative and impelling by the language used by the statute. Section 4 (1) of the act, makes such a conclusion unavoidable. To pass upon on the wisdom of the legislature in making such strict and stringent provisions, is not part of the accepted function of a law court. As a matter of strict law, i hold that the provisions of the act would not permit a valid local publication to be made except simultaneously with Section 4 (1) gazette notification. The protestants lay that way the act becomes unworkable. But such fears are wholly imaginary and in any case, irrelevant for the judicial adjudication. They are imaginary fears because the state with its vast machinery can always, in this modern technological age, provide for a simultaneous publication. Simultaneous publication is not really so simultaneous either. It gives twenty - four hours time to do a thing, because law takes no note of part of a day. A modern government that cannot do the job of making a local publication within twenty - four hours probably cannot do anything else worthwhile. Such consideracion is also irrelevant because even if there is any such difficulty, the difficulty can only be got over and can be solved not by the courts but by the legislature. How can a court, in the name of some difficulty, over - rule the will of the people validly expressed by its representatives? for all the aforesaid reasons, i hold that wherever the local publication was not made simultaneously along with the gazette notification the entire land acquisition proceedings would become illegal.

(6) It may be argued that the above reasoning would not apply where section 5 - a (1) inquiry was dispensed with as it is being mechanically done in most cases. But that argument, in my opinion, has no more substance than the theory of justifiable delayed publication. Even where section 5 - a (l) inquiry has been dispensed with by the law, law has not dispensed with the compliance with the requirements of making gazette notification and making local publication under Section 4 (1) of the act. It follows that even where section 5 - a (l) inquiry was dispensed with, both types of publications should be done. Law does not prescribe any separate time for the local publication in cases where section 5 - a (1) inquiry is dispensed with. The language used requiring the local publication to be made is the same in both cases. The time permitted for local publication should therefore be assumed to be the same and uniform irrespective of the fact whether section 5 - a (l) inquiry is dispensed with or not.

(7) All that i have said above is largely a reiteration of the views expressed by the supreme court authoritatively. In state of mysore vs. Abdul razak and narinderjit singh vs. State of uttar pradesh the supreme court has taken the same view. The same view has been taken by a full bench of punjab and haryana in rattan singh vs. The state of punjab in a recent judgment of a division bench of this court in writ appeal nos. 744 and 809/81 dated 23 - 4 - 81, consisting of myself and madhava reddy j. , (as he then was) speaking for the court ruled that local publication should be simultaneous or immediate. We should not light - heartedly depart from those decisions. For my part, i would not because i find either on principle or authority utterly impossible to take any other view. In my humble opinion, any other view would clearly involve an amendment to the land acquisition act, 1894 as made by the parliament and would even be unjust to the illiterate millions of this country.

(8) Applying the above, i have no option except to allow this writ petition on the short ground that local publication having not been made simultaneously with the gazette notification, vitiated the entire proceedings in the case. It was admitted in para 3 of the counteraffidavit filed on behalf of the respondents that sec. 4 (i) statutory notification under the act was published in the andhra pradesh gazette on 14 - 12 - 78. In para 7 of the same counter - affidavit it was also admitted that the substance of Section 4 (1) notification was published in the locality on 7 - 6 - 79 as required under law. There was a delay of about six months in making the local publication from the date of gazette notification. Of course, if it had been open to the respondents to explain this delay, i would have granted the request made by mr. Ramaiah, the learned government pleader to afford him an opportunity to file an additional counter affidavit explaining the delay, but in the clear view of the legal position that i have taken of sec. 4 (1) of this act, i rejected this request because the question of explainable and non - explainable delay could never arise for the consideration of a court of law.

(9) I must, in conclusion, say that if the land acquisition authorities are given the power to explain the delay the statutory period of thirty - days allowed to the land - owner to object by the statute, would become in practice unequal and uncertain and varying frpm. , oa. E case of land acquisition to another case, wholly depending upon the acts of violation of the land acquisition officer. Some land - owners, would the have full thirty - days to object, some twenty - days or even less and some none at all. J think this would amount to playing with the statutory right and would alone be sufficient to show the utter untenability involved in accepting the delay - explanation theory. We should stop our journey on this wrong track. Further sec. 4 (1) local publication acts as a warning to land - owners not to make improvements on the proposed land. That object would also be defeated at least in good measure if we accept the delay - explanation theory.

(10) The land acquisition matters, like all other legal matters should, need, j dare say be decided according to the language the statute used. A court should go by the language used and must make a consistent sense out of the parts of a statute. When the statute attempts to invade the rights of others, call them land - lords or land - owners or small farmers, law calls for a strict? adherence to the letter of the law applying the above reasoning, i allow this writ petition, setting aside the impugned order. The petitioners shall got their costs.

(11) But this judgment shall not prevent the authorities from acquiring this land according to law nor would it prevent the petitioners from filing any writ petition in future challenging any such acquisition.