Satinder Pal Singh vs State of Punjab

G.C. Mital, J.

This judgment will dispose of Civil Writ Petitions No. 860 to 877 all of 1984, as common question arise therein. For facility of reference, the facts of Civil Writ Petition No. 867 of 1984 are being noticed.

Ludhiana Improvement Trust, Ludhiana (hereinafter called ''the trust'') vide resolution No. 102 passed on 7th July, 1960 framed a development scheme known as Model Town extension partI scheme under section 28 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922, (hereinafter called the ''Act'') for an area measuring approximately 300 acres. A notice in this regard was published in the Government Gazette dated 16th September, 1960 in accordance with section 38 of the Act. A copy of this notice is annexure P1. Later on vide notification dated 7th May, 1964 the State Government sanctioned the scheme with regard to an area measuring approximately 165 acres. The notification was issued in pursuance of the provisions of section 42(1) of the Act, copy of which is annexure P2. The Land Acquisition Collector gave an award on 31st March, 1965. This related to major part of the acquired land. With regards to 17 Bighas 6 Biswas 6 Bisvansis no award was given as this area belonged to the Central Government (being erstwhile evacuee property having vested in the Central Government as such) and the Trust was advised to acquire that area by settling the price by negotiation with Regional Settlement Commissioner, Jalandhar. The relevant observations of the Land Acquisition Collector in this regard were as follows :

"Land measuring 17B6B6B bearing Khasra Nos. 163/1, 168, 184, 186 min, 183 min, 191 to 193 min, 200 min, 201 min to 207 min, 291/286/194/209/l, 209/2, 209/3, 209/5, 209/5/3, 209/5/11, 209/5/6, 209/5/2, 209/5/1, 209/5/5 belongs to the Central Government and the Trust is advised to acquire this land by negotiations with the Regional Settlement Commissioner, Jalandhar."

The aforementioned land, which belonged to the Central Government was already in occupation of certain allottees and displaced persons from West Pakistan. In spite of the direction of the Land Acquisition Collector to the Trust to settle the price of the aforesaid land with the Rehabilitation Department, no action was taken by the Trust and in the meantime the Central Government through the Rehabilitation authorities granted Sanand i.e. the proprietary rights to the allottees and the occupants in due course. After about 20 years, the Trust woke up and issued notices to the occupants under section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 to invite their claims regarding the details of the land, interest therein and the amount of compensation etc. Copy of one of such notice is Annexure P3 which gives the details when the acquisition was made by issuance of notification under section 42 of the Act in Govt. gazette dated 11th May, 1964 and the award was announced on 31st March, 1965 and since the ownership of the land under consideration was of the Central Government, this land was not included in the award and the Trust was asked to acquire land by direct negotiation and now the Trust wanted to give a supplementary award and thus the claims were invited. Soon after the receipt of the aforesaid notices, the petitioner came to this Court to challenge the entire acquisition proceedings. The petitioner have further averred in the writ petition that they have built their houses after spending thousands of rupees after the land was permanently transferred to them by the Rehabilitation Department, whereas some of the petitioners are transferees from such persons who have set up their residential houses. The main attack in the writ petition to challenge the entire acquisition proceedings is that notification equal to section 4 was issued way back in September, 1960 and notification equal to section 6 was issued on 7th May, 1964 yet till date compensation has not been determined and, therefore, the lapse of over 20 years period has made the acquisition a colourable exercise of authority to peg down the prices of the acquired land as it obtained on 16th September, 1960, which is not permissible in view of the following Full Bench and Division Bench judgments of this Court.

(i) Radhey Sham Gupta v. State of Haryana, 1982 PLJ 349 : 1984 R.R.R. 493.

(ii) Man Singh and others v. State of Punjab, 1980 PLJ 414.

(iii) Smt. Ranjit Kaur v. State of Punjab, 1983 PLJ 164.

(iv) Ranbir Kumar Arora v. State of Haryana, 1983 PLJ 176.

The writ petition is contested by the Improvement Trust. Certain preliminary objections have been taken. Word noticing are that the petitioners have locus standi to file the writ petition as the land stood already acquired vide award dated 31st March, 1965 and at that time the land belonged to Central Government, the transfer of land by the Central Government to the petitioners or their predecessorsininterest was illegal and void because the land stood acquired by announcement of award on 31s March, 1965 and the only point left was regarding the determination of the price to be paid to the Central Government, that if notice issued under section 36 of the Act is quashed, it would disturb the whole scheme which includes large block of other lands; and that the Central Government was a necessary party. On merits the pleas taken in the preliminary objections were highlighted besides stating the following facts in para 8 :

"In reply to para No. 8 of the petition, it is submitted that although the land was in the name of Central Government yet private persons were in possession of the same and their litigation with the Govt. was going on. Due to this the respondentTrust could not take any action in the matter. In the meanwhile when the private individuals became owners, the respondent Trust started taking action in the matter and necessary notices were issued and served."

After considering the entire matter, I am of the considered view that these cases are fully covered by decisions relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioners and there is no distinguishing feature. It is true that the award was given on 31st March, 1965 and if compensation had been fixed for the land in dispute, the petitioners would have had no case. A reading of the award shows that compensation was not determined for 17 Bighas 6 Biswas 6 Biswansis, which includes the land in these writ petitions and the matter kept pending to be settled with the Central Government. For the substantial part of the remaining acquired land, award was given and payment was made to the landowners, whereafter the Trust took possession and carried out its scheme. However, so far as the aforesaid 17 Bighas 6 Biswas 6 Biswansis, the allottees continued in occupation of the same and till the beginning of 1984 the Trust took no action to give award, to pay compensation and to take possession of the land. Therefore, so far as 17 Bighas 6 Biswas 6 Biswansis are concerned, which form the distinct part of the acquired land the decisions relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioners are fully applicable and the acquisition regarding this area cannot be allowed to stand and has to be quashed because on the bases of notices under section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, price which prevailed in 1960 is sought to be paid to the petitioners. The nontaking of action for nearly 24 years clearly shows colourable exercise of authority by the Improvement Trust as also to peg down its price, which according to the Full Bench and the Division Bench judgments is not permissible and the acquisitions have been quashed on account of delay. In certain cases delay of even three years was considered to be sufficient to quash the acquisition whereas in the present case there is delay of 20 years after issuance of notification under section 42 of the Act which is equal to section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and of 24 years after issue of notification under section 36 of the Act which is equal to section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

Schemes of the Act and Land Acquisition Act are such that the land vests in the Government free from all encumbrances under section 16 of Land Acquisition Act, only if award is made under section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, compensation is offered to the claimants and after compensation is offered to the claimants, possession is taken. It is admitted position on the record that so far no award has been given with regard to the land which is in occupation of the petitioners and that they continued to be in its possession right upto date. Therefore, the stand of the Improvement Trust taken in its written statement that they have become owners is baseless. The Central Government continued to be its owner and after the conveyance deeds were executed in favour of the petitioners or their predecessorsininterest, they became its owners and are persons interested to challenge the acquisition.

Equally there is no merit in the stand of the Improvement Trust that if these writ petitions are allowed, the entire scheme will fall to the ground. In support of the argument, reliance was placed on M/s. Northern Carriers Pvt. Ltd. v. Jullundur Improvement Trust, Jullundur and others, AIR 1983 SC 282. After going through the facts of the aforesaid case, I find that it is a decision on its peculiar facts and is clearly distinguishable from the facts of the present case. These writ petitions are directed against that part of the land which is within 17 Bighas 6 Biswas 6 Biswansis, out of 165 acres of land, regarding which, no award was given and the matter was left open to be gone into for being negotiated with the Central Government. Here the entire Improvement Scheme framed by the Trust would stand except for the part, which would be covered by the land of the writ petitioners.

It was then sought to be argued that if the land which is covered by these writ petitions is left out of the scheme, then a small bit of the area would remain undeveloped and haphazard growth of houses would stay. For this it is the Improvement Trust who is to be blamed because it took no action right from 31st March, 1965 till date in finalising the compensation. It was the duty of the Improvement Trust to finalise the fixation of compensation for 17 Bighas 6 Biswas and 6 Biswansis within a reasonable period from 31st March, 1965. If still Improvement Trust wants to bring the area in dispute in a planned developed form, it is open to it to acquire the same by framing a fresh scheme under sections 36 and 42 of the Act after paying compensation to the claimants for the construction and the land as it may obtain on the date the notification under section 36 of the Act would now be issued.

For the reasons recorded above, all these writ petitions are allowed with costs (counsel''s fee being Rs. 100/ in each case), and the notifications Annexures P1 and P.2 issued under sections 36 and 42 of the Act and notice Annexure P3 inviting claims under section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 are hereby quashed.