Cochin Devaswom Board vs State of Kerala and Another

Velu Pillai, J.—This �s a petition to quash Ext. P. 3 dated July 1, 1959, an order passed by the Collector under the Cochin Land Acquisition Act (Act II of 1070), referred to hereafter as the ''Act'' by which, he refused to refer a land acquisition case to the District Court for decision. The award was passed by him on February 5, 1958, and the application for reference was made on November 7,1958, and was rejected as barred by limitation. The material part of Section 17, sub-section (2), proviso (b) of the Act, which Iays down the relevant rule of limitation runs as follows:

Provided that every such application shall be made:

(a)"........................"

(b) "in other cases, within six weeks of the rece�pt of the notice from the Peishkar u/s 11, sub-section (2), or within six months from the date of the Peishkar''s award whichever period shall first expire".

There is a moot question in this case, whether the notice issued to the petitioner on February 21, 1958, is a notice u/s 11(2) within the meaning of the earlier part of the above provisi�n; but it need not be decided, as, in my opini�n, the application is out of time even under the latter part. A Divisi�n Bench of this Court in State of Travancore-Cochin v Narayani Amma Ponnamma (1958 K. L. T. 346=1958 K. L. J. 589) took the view, differ�ng from that of the Madras H�gh Court in Lakshmana Rao v Revenue Divisional Officer, Ranipet (A.I.R. 1954 Madras 942) and the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Seshachalam v District Collector, Guntur (A. I. R. 1957 Andhra Pradesh 687) but in agreement with that of the Bombay High Court in Jahangir v C. D. Gaikwad (A. I. R. 1954 Bombay 419) the Allahabad High Court in Raja Harischandra v Deputy Land Acquisition Officer (K. I. R. 1957 Allahabad 112) and the Travancore-Cochin High Court in Ravunni Nair v The State of Travancore-Cochin (1954 K. L. T. 952) that "the date of the award, is not the date of the receipt of the notice thereof by the person making the application or the date on which he obtained knowledge or information about it", but is the "date of its filing in the Collector''s office, and not the date on which the Collector has only written or signed it". I ara bound by the above decisi�n. The only question is, what is the date on which the award was filed. In the counter-affidavit, it was stated that the award was filed in the office of the Collector on February 5, 1958. Section 11(1) of the Act provides that:

"such award shall be filed in the Peishkar''s office and shall except as hereinafter provided be final and conclusive evidence as between the Peishkar and the person interested........".

The learned counsel for the petitioner has contended, that the word ''file'' occurring in this Section, has a formal or technical meaning, that is the Collector must make an express order, that the award be filed and has to initial it. There is nothing in the Act or the Rules framed under it to ind�cate this. The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives the meaning of the word ''file'' as "to place papers on file or among public records", and the meaning given in Black''s Law Dictionary is more apt and "is to endorse upon the paper the date of its reception, and retain it in........office, subject to inspection by whomsover it may concern". In a note at the foot of this, it is further stated, that the word "in this country and at this day means, aggreeably to our practice, depositing them in due order in the proper office". Jagadisa Aiyer on Manual of Law Terms and Phrases gives the meaning of the words ''to file'' as "to deposit at an office or in court".

The learned counsel for the petitioner has relied chiefly on the observations in Macdonald v The Secretary of State for India in Council (4 Indian Cases 914):

The Collector signs an award, and without announcing it files it with various other documents in his office............Under section 18 of the Act (The Indian Land Acquisition Act - which corresponds to section 17 of the Act) the persons interested would be barred from applying for a reference to the Civil Court as more than six months had elapsed from the ''making'' of the award.

These observations do not afford any assistance in defining the word ''file'', and it has further to be noted, that they were made in support of the conclusi�n reached in the case, that an award cannot be said to have been �egally made before it is announced or communicated to the parties concerned, a view which has been departed from by this Court. Secretary of state v Bhagwan Prasad (A.I.R. 1929 Allahabad 769) referred to by counsel has only held, that the date of the filtng and not the making of the award, is the starting point and in the third case cited, Pannalal Maheshwari v State of Bihar (A. I. R. 1955 Patna 63) it waspointed out, that the filing in the Collector''s office is necessary in order to give notice to the parties concerned. In my opini�n, these cases do not support the contention of the petitioner''s learned counsel.

It is seen from the file, that the award was passed in Land Acquisition Case No. 256 of 1959, being Award No. 19 of 1958, dated February 5, 1958. On the top of the award, is another sheet of paper, entitled "In the Office of the Deputy Collector for Land Acquisition, Trichur," and the details of the award are set out in it, in a tabular form, and the sheet is finally signed by the Deputy Collector (Land Acquisition) as on February 5, 1958, and bears an initial of the same date. As the learned Government P�eader arges, this is sufficient act of filing the award in the Office of the Collector, in terms of the definition of that word, as set out in Black''s Law Dictionary extracted above. This act is also sufficient to enable, the office to issue notice, and the parties to apply for copies. In the absence of any form or procedure prescribed, to file an award, I hold, that th� usual and ordinary meaning of the word ''filing'' must be accepted, without attaching any formality to it. Filing is, after all, a physical act. If so, the award in this case had been filed on February 5, 1958, and the application for reference was beyond the period of six months prescribed by the latter part of clause (b) extracted above. The learned counsel for the petitioner also contended for the larger proposition, that the start�ng point of limitation is not the date of the fil�ng of the award, but is the date on which �nformation of the award reached the applicant for reference, and relied on the cases decided by the Madras and Andhra Pradesh High Courts, referred to above. It is sufficient to observe, that on the view taken by the Divisi�n Bench of this Court, I cannot accept this contention. This petition is therefore dismissed. but without costs.