Justice S U Khan was on Thursday nominated by the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court to head the three-judge bench hearing the land acquisition cases of Noida and Greater Noida. On Wednesday,Justice R K Agarwal had recused himself from the matter citing conflict of interest as his son was representing one of the private builders. A new date for hearing of the cases was yet to be fixed by the new bench. Justices Ashok Bhushan and V K Shukla will continue to remain on the bench. Justice Khan was also on the three-judge bench that passed the verdict in the Ayodhya dispute case. Earlier,the land acquisition cases of Noida and Greater Noida,in which the use of urgency clause for acquiring the land by the two authorities was challenged,had been referred to a larger bench on July 26 by a division bench of the high court that was hearing the case. Since then,the number of villages and the total area,whose acquisition is under question,has gone up to nearly 20 and approximately 3,500 hectares.
