Yudhvir Singh vs Land Acquisition Collector
2011 Latest Caselaw 2766 Del

*           IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI



%                                         Date of decision: 24.05.2011



+         WP(C) No. 3595/2011 and CM Nos.7523/2011


YUDHVIR SINGH                                                   ...PETITIONER


                    Through:             Mr.N.S.Dalal, Advocate

                        Versus


LAND ACQUISITION COLLECTOR                                    ...RESPONDENT


                    Through:            Mr.Sanjay Poddar, Advocate


CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJAY KISHAN KAUL
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SHAKDHER

1.      Whether the Reporters of local papers
        may be allowed to see the judgment?                             YES

2.      To be referred to Reporter or not?                              YES

3.      Whether the judgment should be                                  YES
        reported in the Digest?



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WPC No.3595/2011                                                         Page 1 of 14
 SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, J. (ORAL)

CM No.7523/2011

Allowed subject to just exceptions.

+ WP (C) No.3595/2011

1. The petitioner seeks to raise a legal plea that he is

entitled to maintain an application for enhanced

compensation under Section 28-A of the Land

Acquisition Act, 1894 („the said Act‟ for short) even

though filed admittedly beyond three (3) months of the

date of the award on the ground that it was filed within

three months of the date of the knowledge of the

award. In substance the plea is that it is the date of

knowledge of the petitioner which is material for

purposes of filing an application under Section 28-A of

the said Act to claim parity in respect of compensation

qua persons who had sought and obtained enhanced

compensation.

2. The factual matrix is limited. The petitioner was owner

of the land in question, which was situated in Village

Dhaka. The land was sought to be acquired by issuance

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of a notification u/Section 4 of the said Act on

13.11.1959, which was followed by a declaration dated

22.11.1962 issued under Section 6 of the said Act. An

award no.1557, in this regard, was passed on

30.03.1963. The petitioner never preferred a reference

for enhancement of compensation. Other aggrieved

land owners from the same village and in respect of

the same award, sought a reference. These persons

are stated to have succeeded ultimately in a decision

rendered by this Court in RFA No.23/1970 vide order

dated 24.04.1987. This fact is stated not to be within

the knowledge of the petitioner till 26.06.2008, when

he applied for a certified copy and obtained the same

on 04.07.2008. The petitioner thereafter filed

applications under Section 28-A of the said Act on

10.07.2008 and 12.08.2008. The aforesaid applications

were not entertained. The last communication in this

behalf (which is the impugned communication) is dated

13.01.2010. The impugned communication/order reads

as under:

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" With reference to your applications dated 10.07.2008 and 12.08.2008 on the subject mentioned above. In this regard, I am to inform you that your applications have been dismissed on the ground that the judgment of ADJ and Hon‟ble High Court on the basis of which you have sought the compensation u/s 28-A of LA Act were passed on 15.02.08, 24.07.87 and 14.02.02 respectively and you have filed applications on 10.07.08 and 12.08.08 after a considerable gap of time as prescribed in LA Act."

3. The petitioner being aggrieved has filed the present

writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of

India.

4. An aggrieved party is entitled to seek a reference inter

alia in respect of the quantum of compensation under

Section 18 of the said Act.

5. Section 28-A of the said Act was introduced with effect

from 24.09.1984 to give benefit of an award which may

have been made in respect of a decision made in a

reference where other land owners from the same

village and in respect of the same award had sought

such a reference and succeeded. The objective was to

give parity. The said Section reads as under: _____________________________________________________________________________________

"28-A. 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, required that the matter be referred by the Collector for the determination of the Court and the provisions of sections 18 to 28 shall, so far as may be, apply to such reference as they apply to a reference under section 18."

6. A reading of the aforesaid Section thus provides that in

order to avail of the benefit of Section 28-A of the said

Act, an application has to be made within three months

of the date of the award. The proviso stipulates that

the time to be excluded for making such an

application is only the time spent in obtaining a copy of

the award.

7. The aforesaid provision was interpreted even more

beneficially in a judgment of the Supreme Court in UOI

& Anr. v. Pradeep Kumari & Ors.; (1995) 2 SCC 736.

The legal position propounded is that where more than

one award is made by the Court, an applicant under

Section 28-A of the said Act can avail of the benefit by

taking last award into consideration and moving an

application within the time stipulated from such last

award. In arriving at this conclusion, the beneficial _____________________________________________________________________________________

nature of legislation has been taken into consideration

as set out in para 8 of the said judgment, which reads

as under:

"8. We may, at the outset, state that having regard to the Statement of Objects and Reasons, referred to earlier, the object underlying the enactment of Section 28-A is to remove inequality in the payment of compensation for same or similar quality of land arising on account of inarticulate and poor people not being able to take advantage of the right of reference to the civil court under Section 18 of the Act. This is sought to be achieved by providing an opportunity to all aggrieved parties whose land is covered by the same notification to seek redetermination once any of them has obtained orders for payment of higher compensation from the reference court under Section 18 of the Act. Section 28-A is, therefore, in the nature of a beneficent provision intended to remove inequality and to give relief to the inarticulate and poor people who are not able to take advantage of right of reference to the civil court under Section 18 of the Act.

In relation to beneficent legislation, the law is well-settled that while construing the provisions of such a legislation the court should adopt a construction which advances the policy of the legislation to extend the benefit rather than a construction which has the effect of _____________________________________________________________________________________

curtailing the benefit conferred by it. The provisions of Section 28-A should, therefore, be construed keeping in view the object underlying the said provision."

8. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the

aforesaid observations should result in even more

beneficial interpretation and thus the date of

knowledge should be taken into account as is often

done in respect of different provisions while calculating

limitation. Learned counsel has also relied upon the

observations made by the Supreme Court in a more

recent judgment in V.Ramakrishna Rao v. Singareni

Collieries Company Limited and Anr.; (2010) 10 SCC

650 where mere pendency of the application was held

not to deny the legitimate rights to seek enhancement

of compensation.

9. Learned counsel for the LAC, on the other hand,

submits that the effect of the provisions cannot go

beyond what the legislature has stipulated, and that

the proviso to Section 28-A of the said Act itself makes

it clear how the period of limitation is to be calculated

for purposes of making an application under Section _____________________________________________________________________________________

28-A of the said Act. Thus, no other period is to be

excluded from the time stipulated of three months than

what is specifically stated in the proviso.

10. Another aspect which has been raised by learned

counsel for LAC is that the petitioner seeks to rely upon

the judgment of the High Court for making the

application under Section 28-A of the said Act while the

benefit is to be made available only on the basis of an

award rendered. Learned counsel states that in case a

reference court gives enhanced compensation and the

beneficiaries are aggrieved further, they may prefer an

appeal, but the application to be filed by other land

owners seeking to avail of benefit of Section 28-A of

the said Act has to be within a period of three months

from the date of the award passed by the civil court

and such an application is to be kept pending till the

final conclusion of the matter. This is so in view of the

judgment of the Supreme Court in Babua Ram v. State

of UP; (1995) 2 SCC 689.

11. Learned counsel has also drawn our attention to

a subsequent judgment of the Supreme Court in Bhagti _____________________________________________________________________________________

(Smt.) (deceased) through her LR Jagdish Ram Sharma

v. State of Haryana; (1997) 4 SCC 473 which has

referred to the judgment in Babua Ram v. State of UP‟s

case (supra). It has been held that Section 28-A of the

said Act does not apply in case of an order made by

the High Court and the claimant can seek re-

determination of compensation only on the basis of an

award of the reference court and not the judgment of

the High Court.

12. We find that in view of the aforesaid legal

principles set out, the Supreme Court itself has

answered all the issues which are now sought to be

raised by the petitioner. No doubt, Section 28-A of the

said Act has been construed as a beneficial legislation,

but to what extent such a benefit has to be granted,

has been discussed in UOI & Anr. v. Pradeep Kumari &

Ors.‟s case (supra). The Supreme Court has gone thus

far and not further. In view of the relevant provision

having been fully interpreted, in our considered view, it

is not open to this Court to extend the contours of the

beneficial legislation any further specifically in view _____________________________________________________________________________________

of the mode and manner in which the legislature

in its wisdom has enacted the said provision. The

decision in Bhagti (Smt.) (deceased) through her LR

Jagdish Ram Sharma v. State of Haryana‟s case

(supra) also stands in the way of the petitioner as the

very premise on which the petitioner seeks to contend

his case, is that, the relevant date is the date of

decision of the High Court, which is not so, as the

relevant date would be the date of decision of the

reference court. Since the appeal is of the year 1970,

the reference court‟s decision would be at least of 1970

or earlier.

13. Learned counsel for the petitioner at this stage

has also sought to raise the issue of the petitioner

being the only son of the original land owner and thus

pleads that the date of knowledge would be, according

to him, when he acquired knowledge of the decision of

the High Court.

14. In our considered view, this is a self-defeating

argument for the reason that the petitioner only steps

into the shoes of his father, who is stated to be the _____________________________________________________________________________________

original land owner and the original land owner never

took steps in accordance with law to seek parity of

compensation and thus the petitioner cannot be better

off than the original land owner. The judgment in UOI

& Anr. v. Pradeep Kumari & Ors.‟s case (supra) makes

it absolutely clear that the limitation for moving an

application under Section 28-A of the said Act will

begin to run only from the date of the award on the

basis of which re-determination of compensation is

sought which in turn would imply that the date of

knowledge is immaterial. Para 11 of the said judgment

reads as under:

"11. Since the cause of action for moving the application for redetermination of compensation under Section 28-A arises from the award on the basis of which redetermination of compensation is sought, the principle that "once the limitation begins to run, it runs in its full course until its running is interdicted by an order of the court"

can have no application because the limitation for moving the application under Section 28-A will begin to run only form the date of the award on the basis of which _____________________________________________________________________________________

redetermination of compensation is sought."

(emphasis is ours)

15. We may note that the judgment in UOI & Anr. v.

Pradeep Kumari & Ors.‟s case (supra) over-ruled the

judgment in Babua Ram v. State of UP‟s case (supra)

only to the limited aspect of conferring the benefit of

limitation to the claimant on the basis of the first award

as against the last award.

16. In the writ petition, the petitioner has also made

a reference to one of the orders passed on 15.02.2008

and claims that the application filed in July, 2008 is just

after 8 months {ground (v) of the writ petition}.

However, no copy of this order dated 15.02.2008 has

been annexed to the writ petition nor there is a

reference of such an order in the application filed

under Section 28-A of the said Act annexed as

Annexure P-1 to the writ petition. We are thus unaware

as to what is the nature of this order. Be that as it

may, even if this order is taken into account, the

application is way beyond the period of three months.

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17. In view of the aforesaid settled legal position, we

find no merit in the writ petition.

18. Dismissed.

SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, J.

MAY 24, 2011                                            RAJIV SHAKDHER, J.
dm

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