Om Prakash vs Union Of India (Uoi)
2006 Latest Caselaw 1597 Del

JUDGMENT

S. Muralidhar, J.

1. The petitioner was the owner of land ad-measuring 16 bighas 4 biswas, situated in Village Dallupura, Delhi which came to be acquired pursuant to a Notification dated 10.11.1959 under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1898(`Act'), a declaration dated 20.6.1966 under Section 6 of the Act followed by an Award No. 2052-E/71-72/Suppl. dated 30.12.1967.

2. The Land Acquisition Collector(`LAC') had fixed the compensation at Rs. 500/- per bigha. Pursuant to the reference petitions under Section 18, the learned Additional District Judge, Delhi (`ADJ') by a judgment dated 7.1.1994 enhanced the compensation to Rs.8054/- per bigha following the judgment of this Court in RFA No. 128 of 1982 (Om Prakash v. Union of India).

3. The petitioner did not file an application under Section 18. However, the petitioner claims to have submitted a petition on 9.3.1994 under Section 28A of the Act to the LAC for the award of the enhanced compensation in terms of the said order dated 7.1.1994 of the learned ADJ. The petitioner claims that this application was in fact given to the Office of the LAC (DS) on 9.3.1994. The petitioner states that he made another application, more than 8 years later, on 15.11.2002 to the LAC annexing a photocopy of the earlier application dated 9.3.1994 and reiterating his prayer for enhanced compensation. When no reply was received to this subsequent application dated 15.11.2002, the petitioner on 7.11.2003 filed this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking the following relief:

(a) issue a writ, order or direction(s) in the nature of mandamus directing the Respondent to make the payment of enhanced compensation after redetermination of market value of the Petitioner's land under Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act to the Petitioner, relying on the aforesaid judgment.

4. In reply to the writ petition, the LAC categorically asserted that there is no application under Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act dated 9.3.1994 in the record of the present award file. It was further stated as under:

3. That on receipt of a reminder dated 15.11.2002 from the petitioner, efforts were made to locate the application dated 9.3.1994. However, from perusal of the records, no such application appears to have been received by the Office of the Land Acquisition Collector, District East. Hence as no such application appears to have been filed by the petitioner, the petitioner may be directed to furnish proof of filing the application under Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act dated 9.3.1993.

5. In rejoinder, the petitioner asserted as under:

That in rejoinder to the contents of para No. 2 of the affidavit the Petitioner submits that an application under Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act was filed on 9.3.1994 within the time prescribed under the said Act and is recorded in their daily diary and the register pertaining to application under Section 28A maintained by the Respondent at Tis Hazari Court, which was used to be common filing for the matters pertaining to Land Acquisition.

6. We have heard Mr. N.S. Vashisht, learned Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Sanjay Poddar, the learned Advocate for the respondents.

7. In the first place, it requires to be noticed, where a land owner, for some reason, has not been able to file application under Section 18 of the Act for enhanced compensation, he is given one more chance to seek such enhanced compensation provided other land owners under the same notification have received such enhanced compensation. This is provided for in Section 28A of the Act which reads as follows:

28A. Re-determination of the amount of compensation on the basis of the award of the Court.__(1) Where in an award under this Part, the Court allows to the applicant any amount of compensation in excess of the amount awarded by the Collector under Section 11, the persons interested in all the other land covered by the same notification under Section 4, Sub-section (1) and who are also aggrieved by the award of the Collector may, notwithstanding that they had not made an application to the Collector under Section 18, by written application to the Collector within three months from the date of the award of the Court require that the amount of compensation payable to them may be re-determined on the basis of the amount of compensation awarded by the Court:

Provided that in computing the period of three months within which an application to the Collector shall be made under this sub-section, the day on which the award was pronounced and the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the award shall be excluded.

(2) The Collector shall, on receipt of an application under Sub-section (1), conduct an inquiry after giving notice to all the persons interested and giving them a reasonable opportunity of being heard, and make an award determining the amount of compensation payable to the applicants.

(3) Any person who has not accepted the award under Sub-section (2) may, by written application to the Collector, require that the matter be referred by the Collector for the determination of the Court and the provisions of Sections 18 to 28, so far as may be, apply to such reference as they apply to a reference under Section 18.

8. It requires to be noticed that there are certain time limits prescribed in Section 28A of the Act itself for a land owner to make a claim for enhanced compensation. If the land owner is not vigilant enough to pursue his claims, it would be difficult for a Court to come to his aid unless he shows a valid justification for the delay in approaching the Court. The case of the petitioner here is that respondents failed to perform their statutory duties in terms of Section 28A of the Act despite the petitioner having invoked that remedy within the prescribed time.

9. Although the petitioner asserts that he did file an application on 9.3.1994 itself, the respondents, as already noticed hereinabove, have categorically denied that any such application exists. Learned Counsel for the respondents submits that there was a re-organisation of the different district/zones in Delhi which required the re-distribution of the records and unless a person who had filed an application, had followed up with the authorities within a reasonable time, it would be very difficult to trace out the old records. He points out that the file of the award in the present case does not indicate that any such application was in fact filed.

10. The question whether the petitioner has in fact filed an application on 9.3.1994 itself is a disputed question of fact and cannot be possibly adjudicated upon in the present proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution. We do not propose to undertake such an exercise. There is no explanation at all anywhere in the writ petition as to what the petitioner was doing between 9.3.1994, when he purports to have first made his application under Section 28A of the Act, and 15.11.2002 when he made his next application. Learned Counsel for the petitioner is unable to explain this delay. In the circumstances, we are of the view that the present writ petition is clearly barred by laches. The petitioner having slept over the matter for a period of 8 years, cannot expect the Court to come to his aid in the matter of this nature.

11. The petitioner then relies on an order dated 29.3.2000 passed by the LAC in a certain application filed by one Shri Bhuley and some others in regard to the same village to show that in those cases, the LAC had entertained the applications filed under Section 28A. We have gone through the said order dated 29.3.2000 passed by the LAC in the said cases. There is no dispute at all in those cases that the applicants did file their applications under Section 28A in time. The delay in making the order dated 29.3.2000 was on account of the respondents taking an unreasonably long time to file their objections to the said application. We do not see how the order dated 29.3.2000 passed by the LAC in those cases can help the petitioner herein, who has chosen to file an application only on 15.11.2002 and in any event did not follow up his earlier application for more than 8 years.

12. In this view of the matter, we find no merit in this writ petition. It is accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs.