Judgment No. SC 13/18 Civil Appeal No. SC 469/13 Ref. HC 601/11 Ref. HC 9527/11 The severed lots 2 and 3 were not validly gazetted because they had ceased to be part of the original block and the new owners were not given notice of the intended compulsory acquisition. The same cannot however, be said of lot I which remained as a fraction of the whole original Remaining Extent of Stuhm which Cecil Reimer continued to hold under deed of transfer 3032/87. Just to draw an analogy, if the Sheriff had given notice to attach the 3 lots under the mistaken belief that they all belonged to Cecil his notice and attachment of block I could not be foiled simply because lots 2 and 3 belonged to some other people. The Sheriff will undoubtedly be entitled to attach the remaining lot 1 belonging to Cecil Michael Reimer. By the same token, once the acquiring authority had gazetted the whole original piece of land, it was entitled as of right to acquire any fraction of that land that was legally subject to acquisition in terms of the Constitution. The appellant sought to attack the first notice No. 405A of 2000 on the basis that it had expired in terms of the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act. The same applies to the second and third notices 298A of 2003 and 323A of 2003. It also sought to argue that the land gazetted does not exist simply because the gazetted land is 1 704.741 hectares in extent whereas the land in dispute is 583.136 hectares in extent. The disputed land in respect of which notice to compulsorily acquire was given can easily be identified by employing the blue pencil rule to excise lots 2 and 3 from the whole, leaving the land in dispute intact, being the Remaining extent of Stuhm measuring 583.136 Hectares held by Cecil Michael Reimer under deed of transfer 3032/1987. The blue pencil rule is a common law doctrine which allows a court to sever an unenforceable portion of a 4