Kunjamma Rajamma vs The Special Deputy Collector (L.A.)

Sukumaran, J.—The writ petition involves an interpretation of Section 28A of the Kerala Land Acquisition Act.

In the course of the acquisition proceedings relating to the land of the Petitioner, an award was passed on 20th August 1981. No steps were taken to challenge the award. It became final. The Land Acquisition Act was amended by the Amendment Act 68 of 1984, which came into force on 24th September 1984. It would appear that there were further proceedings for enhanced compensation in respect of some other lands acquired under the same notification. Enhanced compensation had been awarded by this Court. The Petitioner then thought that she too could claim and get additional compensation at the higher fates awarded by the Court in similar cases, invoking Section 28A of the Act which found its way to the statute book by virtue of the Amendment Act. Accordingly, she filed an application dated 8th March 1988 before the Land Acquisition Officer for re-determination of the compensation. The Land Acquisition Officer held that the benefits of the amended provisions were not available to the Petitioner, as the award had been passed about three years prior to the Amendment Act. According to her, the section had application only prospectively. The request was therefore rejected by Ext. P-2 order.

It was contended that the section has to be read as having retrospective effect.

The question whether the amended provision affects anterior transactions as well, according to her, will have to be adjudged on an examination of the scheme of the enactment and with particular reference to the objects and reasons which weighed with the Parliament for making the amendment. The inability of the illiterate owners of land to invoke the legal provisions of the Land Acquisition in time, was to be relieved against by the Parliament. That being so, it will be only proper that whatever be the distance of time at which the award is passed, the benefits should accrue to the owner of the land.

The extent to which the Parliament wanted to confer a benefit is to be gathered primarily from the express language. Section 28A, on its plain reading, does not extend the benefit to all the persons whose lands had been acquired, regardless of the date of coming into force of the Amendment Act. The hardship arising out of the inaction of the illiterate owners of land was the subject matter of deliberation, and the actual legal provision made it effective only from the date on which the Amendment Act came into force, namely, on 24th September 1984. If the section, on its own force, has the effect of upsetting antecedent disabilities, and projecting the benefits to ancient owners as well, the courts and authorities will have necessarily to give effect to the same. The language of Section 28A, however, does not countenance such a proposition.

It is not as though in the scheme of things, every provision in an amendatory Act its retrospective operation. In relation to some provisions, there had been useful discussions both in the decisions of the High Courts of India as also those of the Supreme Court. In one area, a difference of view was discernible. That has now been resolved by an authoritative pronouncement of the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Raghubir Singh 1989 (2) KLT 168. That decision itself is illustrative of the limited retrospective effect available to those who have lost their land in the acquisition proceedings. The decision as such, may not have any effect on the interpretation of Section 28A as that section was not the subject matter of the discussion and debate before the highest court. However, an understanding of the scheme of the Amended Act, in its entirety, is available from the discussion and decision so rendered.

The decision in State of Kerala v. Varkey Mathai 1988 (2) KLT 591 did not concern itself with the amplitude of Section 28A of the Act. In relation to one particular conclusion, the effect of reducing the rigor of Section 27 by Section 28A had been referred to in that judgment. That does not in any way affect or influence the interpretarion of Section 28A as such.

Judged by the principles and precedents, it is very difficult to understand Section 28A as having application to awards passed prior to the coming into force of the Amendment Act. Consequently, there is no scope for interference with the decision taken under Ext. P-2. The writ petition s therefore dismissed.