Rajab Akhtar and 2 Others vs State of U.P. and 3 Others

The instant writ petition has been preferred for a direction to respondents not to demolish the construction of the petitioners without acquiring the property of the petitioners and further not to force the petitioners to remove/ demolish their construction.

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Learned counsel for the petitioners apprises the Court that the controversy in hand is squarely covered by the judgement and order dated 20.05.2025 passed in Writ C No.12319 of 2025 (Shahnawaz Khan vs. State of U.P. and others) . The said order was relied upon by the Division Bench while passing the order dated 21.05.2025 in Writ-C No.16448 of 2025 (Rahul Arora and others vs. State of U.P. and others).

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For ready reference, the operative portion of order dated 20.05.2025 is quoted as under:-

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"5. The District Magistrate, Varanasi has filed his affidavit on behalf of the State-

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respondents. The stand taken therein is that the State-Government is proposing to widen

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and strengthen Dal Mandi road. On 20.3.2025 a preliminary estimate was sent to the State

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Government for the said purpose. The total estimated cost was Rs. 22059.46 lakhs.

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WRIC No. 41320 of 2025

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Subsequently, a revised estimate was also submitted. The Public Works Department made demarcation of the land/houses which would be affected by widening under the proposed work. It is unequivocally stated in the affidavit that the respondents would acquire title over the land/building which would be affected by the proposed project on basis of mutual consent or through acquisition under the provisions of the Act of 2013. The relevant assertions contained in this regard in paragraphs 13, 14 and 15 are extracted below:-

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"13-That, the widening and strengthening of the road in question will be completed after the settling the dispute amicably either by purchasing the land in question as provisions of the government order No. 2/2015/215/??-13-2015-20(48)/2011 dated 19.03.2015, with mutual consent/agreement or as per the prescribed provisions under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Act, 2013. A true copy of the government order dated 19/03/2015 is being filed herewith and marked as Annexure No. 4 to the affidavit.

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14-That widening and strengthening of the road in question would be completed after providing the compensation under the provisions of the government order (supra), and if the land owner does not give his consent, then the provisions of the Act of 2013 would be applied.

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15-That at present, there is no demolition drive going on adjacent of the road side of the road in question for road widening, those land owners come in purview in the alignment of the road widening and strengthening of the road in question they must be dealt with under the due process of law and no one have deprive their legal rights."

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6. Sri M.C. Chaturvedi, learned Additional Advocate General assisted by Sri Rajeev Singh, learned Standing Counsel appearing for the State submits that the respondents would not disturb the possession of the petitioner nor demolish his constructions unless title over the same is acquired through voluntary transfer or by compulsory acquisition or any other mode recognized under law.

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7. Keeping in mind the aforesaid stand, the writ petition stands disposed of in terms of the same."

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So far as factual and legal aspect, the same could not be disputed by learned Standing Counsel.

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Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the opinion that similar indulgence is liable to be accorded in the instant matter also. The

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WRIC No. 41320 of 2025

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present writ petition is disposed of in the same terms as have been given in Shahnawaz Khan (Supra).

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(Kunal Ravi Singh,J.) (Mahesh Chandra Tripathi,J.)

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November 25, 2025

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SP/