Siri Niwas and others through Shri Ganpat Rai vs The State of Haryana and another

J.V. Gupta, J.—This revision petition is directed against the order of the Land Acquisition Collector, dated August 23, 1979, whereby the application for reference u/s of the Land Acquisition Act, (hereinafter called the Act), was rejected on the ground of limitation

According to the Collector, the award was announced on October 8, 1971, whereas the said application was received in his office on May 22, 1974. and, therefore, the same was barred by time. Along with the petition, a copy of the application u/s 18 of the Act was also filed. It was stated therein that no notice u/s 9 or 12 was even received by the Petitioners and that they came to know of it about a week earlier when they had come to Gohana. So, the petition u/s 18 was within time In the impugned order, it has nowhere been stated by the Land Acquisition Collector that any notice u/s 9 or 12 was ever received by the Petitioners. Moreover, no notice was given by the Collector to the Petitioners before deciding their application for reference. In these circumstances, this petition is liable to be accepted.

Consequently, this petition succeeds and is allowed. The impugned order is set aside and the Collector is directed to make the reference to the District Judge concerned within two months from today. However, the question of limitation etc is left open to be decided by the District Judge concerned.