Sophy Paul vs District Collector and Others

Mr. Justice Antony Dominic

Petitioner seeks a direction requiring the 1st respondent to take action on Ext. P-3 application filed by her u/s 28A of the Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter referred to as ''the Act'' for short). According to the petitioner, 1.3 ares of her property comprised in Sy. Nos. 7/1 and 7/2 of Maradu Village was acquired under the Act for the Container Terminal established by the 3rd respondent. Award was passed on 19-10-2000 and compensation was also paid. Subsequently, petitioner filed an application dated 10-3-2007 u/s 28A of the Act for redetermination of the compensation relying on the awards in LAR Nos. 62/2001 and 64/2001. By Ext. P-1 order dated 16-4-2008, 2nd respondent rejected the application and the relevant portion of the order reads thus:

The application filed by Smt. Sophy Paul for re-determination of land value based on the judgment in LAR 62/2001 and 64/2001 is verified with connected records and decided to reject the applications on the following grounds.

(1) The petitioner had not filed application within 3 months as per section 28A of L.A. Act.

(2) At the time of hearing the counsel has not produce any supporting relevant documents to substantiate the claim raised in the petition.

(3) Since appeal filed against the LAR 62/2001 and 64/2001 is pending before the Hon''ble High Court. L.A. Rule 12A derives as follows: ''No application u/s 28A shall be entertained when a land acquisition appeal case is pending before a Court''. Hence there is no provision to entertain the applications filed by the petitioner.

Thereafter, L.A.A. No. 754/2006 and connected appeals were dismissed by this Court as per Ext. P-2 common judgment dated 5-3-2010. Subsequently on 17-8-2010, petitioner filed Ext. P-3 application dated 3-8-2010, u/s 28A of the Act for re-determination of the compensation awarded. Orders were not passed on Ext. P-3 and therefore this writ petition has been filed. Contention of the petitioner is that the application filed on 10-3-2007 was an invalid application, inasmuch as the same was filed belatedly and therefore Ext. P-3 application filed for re-determination of compensation filed u/s 28A of the Act is liable to be considered on merits.

The 3rd respondent has filed a counter-affidavit. According to them Section 28A recognizes only one opportunity for re-determination of compensation and that opportunity having been availed of by filing the application leading to Ext. P-1 order, it was impermissible for the petitioner to have filed yet another application vide Ext. P-3. According to the 3rd respondent when the application dated 10-3-2007 filed by the petitioner was rejected by Ext. P-1 order, the petitioner should have taken recourse to Section 28A(3) of the Act. It was also contended that admittedly the application dated 10-3-2007 was filed long after the expiry of the period specified in Section 28A of the Act and therefore its rejection was perfectly legal. On these grounds respondents sought dismissal of the petition.

I heard the counsel appearing for the petitioner, the learned Government Pleader appearing for respondents 1 and 2 and the counsel for the 3rd respondent.

Reading of the counter-affidavit filed by the 3rd respondent shows that the awards in LAR Nos. 62 and 64/2001 were passed on 18-7-2005 and 18-2-2005 respectively. It is also the admitted position that the application u/s 28A of the Act was filed by the petitioner only on 10-3-2007. Obviously this application was filed beyond 3 months period specified in Section 28A of the Act. Reading of Ext. P-1 order shows that delay is one of the grounds on which the application was rejected. It was after Ext. P-2 judgment was rendered on 5-3-2010, Ext. P-3 application dated 3-8-2010 was submitted by the petitioner on 17-8-2010. In this back ground, the question that arises for consideration is whether Ext P-3 application is liable to be considered.

Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act provides that where in an award under the Act the court allows to the applicant any amount of compensation in excess of the amount awarded by the Collector u/s 11, the persons interested in all the other lands covered by the same notification issued u/s 4(1) and were also aggrieved by the award of the Collector may, even though they had not made an application u/s 18, by written application to the Collector within 3 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. Sub-section (2) provides that the Collector shall, on receipt of an application under sub-section (1), conduct an inquiry after giving notice to all the persons interested and after giving them an opportunity of being heard, make an award determining the amount of compensation payable to the applicants.

In so far as this case is concerned, Admittedly, the application dated 10-3-2007 was submitted after the 3 months period specified in the Act had expired. Therefore, rejection of that application cannot be said to be illegal. Then the question is whether Ext. P-3 application submitted after the dismissal of the appeals by Ext. P-2 judgment of this Court is liable to be considered. This precise question came up for consideration of Apex Court in Jose Antonio Cruz Dos R. Rodriguese and another Vs. Land Acquisition Collector and another, where the question considered is stated thus:

The question which arises for determination in these two appeals is whether the period of three months prescribed for making an application for redetermination of the amount of compensation u/s 28A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter called ''the Act'') begins to run against the applicant from the date of the award u/s 18 of the Act or even from the date of the decision of the appeal, if any, preferred against the award.

Thereafter, the Apex Court held that having regard to the plain language of Section 28A, the 3 months period is to be reckoned from the date of award by the Court disposing of the reference u/s 18 and not the Appellate Court dealing with the appeal against the award of the reference Court. The relevant portion of the judgment reads thus:

Before examining the decisions of this Court on which the High Court has placed reliance, we deem it appropriate to first examine the plain language of Section 28A extracted earlier. Section 28A was inserted as the last section in Part III entitled ''Reference to Court and Procedure thereon'' by Act 68 of 1984. Part III begins with Section 18 which provides that if an interested person does not accept the award made by the Collector u/s 11 of the Act, he may, by a written application to the Collector, require that the matter be referred for determination of the court. Section 2(d) defines the expression ''Court'' to mean the principal civil court of original jurisdiction unless a Special Judicial Officer has been appointed. Therefore, the court referred to u/s 18 can only mean the principal civil court of original jurisdiction. Section 23 then sets out the matters to be taken into consideration in determining the compensation to be awarded for the acquired land, and Section 24 indicates the matters to be omitted from consideration. Section 26 provides that the award shall be in writing signed by the Judge which shall be deemed to be a decree within the meaning of clauses (2) and (9) of Section 2 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908. Section 27 provides for costs to be awarded and Section 28 provides for payment of interest on excess compensation. We then come to Section 28A. The first part of the section begins with the words ''Where in an award under this part, Court allows to the applicant any amount of compensation in excess of the amount awarded by the Collector u/s 11'' which clearly indicate that the legislature was talking of an award made under the provisions of Part III, i.e., an award u/s 11 and therefore, in that context, reference to ''Court'' can only mean the court to which a reference is made by the Collector u/s 18. This position is further clarified when the section refers to compensation awarded in excess of the amount awarded u/s 11 of the Act. The second part of the section then addresses ''the persons interested in all the other land covered by the same notification........................and who are also aggrieved by the award'' and permits them to make a written application to the Collector ''within three months from the date of the award of the Court'' requiring him to redetermine the amount of compensation on the basis of the amount awarded by the Court, notwithstanding the fact that they had not sought a reference u/s 18 of the Act. Thus, the newly added section seeks to give the same benefit, which a person who had sought a reference and had secured the Court''s award for a higher amount of compensation had received, to those who had, on account of ignorance or financial constraints, not sought a reference u/s 18. In the latter part of the section also, reference is to the award u/s 11 and later, to the award of the Reference Court u/s 18 of the Act. Therefore, the court referred to therein is again the court referred to in Section 2(d) of the Act, i.e., the principal civil court of original jurisdiction. The plain language of Section 28A, therefore, prescribes the three months'' period of limitation to be reckoned from the date of the award by the Court disposing of the reference u/s 18, and not the appellate court dealing with the appeal against the award of the Reference Court.

We may now refer to the case-law. A Two-Judge Bench of this Court in Babua Ram v. State of U.P. dealt with this precise question and held that the period of limitation begins to run from the date of the first award made on a reference u/s 18 of the Act, and successive awards cannot save the period of limitation; vide paragraphs 19 and 20 of the reporter. This view was reiterated by the same Bench in Union of India v. Karnail Singh wherein this Court held that the limitation of Three months for an application for redetermination of compensation must be computed from the date of the earliest award made by a civil court, and not the judgment rendered by an appellate court. This was followed by the decision of a Three-Judge Bench in Union of India v. Pradeep Kumari wherein it was held that the benefit u/s 28A can be had within three months from the date of the award of the Reference Court on the basis whereof redetermination is sought. The earlier two decisions in the case of Babua Ram and Karnail Singh were overruled on the limited question that they sought to confine the right to seek redetermination to the earliest award made by the Court u/s 18 of the Act after the introduction of Section 28A into the Act. There is, however, no doubt that the period of limitation has to be computed from the date of the Court''s award u/s 18 on the basis whereof redetermination is sought. Admittedly, in both the cases at hand, the applications for redetermination of compensation u/s 28A were made long after the expiry of three months from the date of the award of the Court which constituted the basis for seeking redetermination. We are, therefore, of the opinion that the High Court was right in taking the view that both the applications were time-barred.

However, counsel for the petitioner referred me to Rule 12A (v) of The Land Acquisition (Kerala) Rules, 1990 which provide that no application u/s 28A of the Act shall be entertained when a land acquisition appeal case is pending before a Court. According to the learned counsel this Rule prohibited entertainment of the application u/s 28A when the appeals against the awards in LAR Nos. 62 and 64/2001 were pending and therefore, the application dated 10-3-2007 could not have been even received or considered. According to him, in law, the petitioner got an opportunity to file her application only after Ext. P-2 judgment was rendered by this Court on 5-3-2010, when the appeals filed against the awards in question were dismissed. On this basis counsel argued that despite the expiry of 3 months period from the date of the award rendered by the Reference Court prescribed in Section 28A of the Act, in view of Rule 12A (v) of the Rules referred to above, Ext. P-3 application was a valid one and that the 2nd respondent was duty-bound to consider the same.

As already seen, Rule 12A (v) of Rules prohibits entertainment of an application u/s 28A of the Act during the pendency of an appeal against an award. Both sides relied on the judgments of the Apex Court and this Court explaining the meaning of the word ''entertained'' to buttress their respective contentions. Lakshmi Rattan Engineering Works Ltd. Vs. Asstt. Commr. Sales Tax, Kanpur and Another, was a case arising under the U.R. Sales Tax Act. Section 9 of the Act provided for appeal and the proviso to said Section prescribed that no appeal against an assessment shall be entertained unless it is accompanied by satisfactory proof of payment of the amount of tax admitted by the appellant to be due or of such installments thereof as may have become payable. In this judgment, meaning of the word ''entertained'' was considered by the Apex Court and in paras 7 and 10 it is held thus:

To begin with it must be noticed that the proviso merely requires that the appeal shall not be entertained unless it is accompanied by satisfactory proof of the payment of the amount of tax admitted by the appellant to be due. A question thus arises what is the meaning of the word ''entertained'' in this context? Does it mean that no appeal shall be received or filed or does it mean that no appeal shall be admitted or heard and disposed of unless satisfactory proof is available? The dictionary meaning of the word ''entertain'' was brought to our notice by the parties, and both sides agreed that it means either ''to deal with or admit to consideration''. We are also of the same opinion. The question, therefore is at what stage can the appeal be said to be entertained for the purpose of the application of the proviso? Is it ''entertained'' when it is filed or is it ''entertained'' when it is admitted and the date is fixed for hearing or is it finally ''entertained'', when it is heard and disposed of? Numerous cases exist in the law reports in which the word entertained or similar cognate expressions have been interpreted by the courts. Some of them from the Allahabad High Court itself have been brought to our notice and we shall deal with them in due course. For the present, we must say that if the legislature intended that the word ''file'' or ''receive'' was to be used, there was no difficulty in using those words. In some of the statutes which were brought to our notice such expressions have in fact been used. For example, under Order 41, Rule 1 of the CPC it is stated that a memorandum shall not be filed or presented unless it is accompanied etc., in S. 17 of the Small Causes Courts Act, the expression is ''at the time of presenting the application''. In Section 6 of the Court Fees Act, the words are ''file'' or ''shall be received''. It would appear from this that the Legislature was not at a loss for words if it had wanted to express itself in such forceful manner as is now suggested by counsel for the State. It has used the word ''entertain'' and it must be accepted that it has used it advisedly. This word has come in for examination in some of the cases of the Allahabad High Court and we shall now refer to them.

In our opinion these cases have taken a correct view of the word ''entertain'' which according to dictionary also means ''admit to consideration''. It would therefore appear that the direction to the court in the proviso to S. 9 is that the court shall not proceed to admit to consideration an appeal which is not accompanied by satisfactory proof of the payment of the admitted tax. This will be when the case is taken up by the court for the first time. In the decision on which the Assistant Commissioner relied, the learned Chief Justice (Desai, C. J.) holds that the words ''accompanied by'' showed that something tangible had to accompany the memorandum of appeal. If the memorandum of appeal had to be accompanied by satisfactory proof, it had to be in the shape of something tangible, because no intangible thing can accompany a document like the memorandum of appeal. In our opinion, making ''an appeal'' the equivalent of the memorandum of appeal is not sound. Even under 0.41 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the expressions ''appeal'' and ''memorandum of appeal'' are used to denote two distinct things. In Wharton''s Law Lexicon, the word ''appeal'' is defined as the judicial examination of the decision by a higher Court of the decision of an inferior court. The appeal is the judicial examination; the memorandum of appeal contains the grounds on which the judicial examination is invited. For purposes of limitation and for purposes of the rules of the Court it is required that a written memorandum of appeal shall be filed. When the proviso speaks of the entertainment of the appeal, it means that the appeal such as was filed will not be admitted to consideration unless there is satisfactory proof available of the making of the deposit of admitted tax.

In the proviso to Order 21, Rule 90 as amended by Allahabad High Court, it was specified that no application to set aside a sale shall be entertained, unless the conditions specified under clauses (a) and (b) of the Rule are satisfied. In the judgment in Hindusthan Commercial Bank Ltd. Vs. Punnu Sahu (Dead) through Legal representatives, in order to answer the contention that proviso was inapplicable to an application filed before the proviso was added, the meaning of the word ''entertained'' was considered by the Apex Court and in para 4 of the judgment, it was held thus:

... It is the contention of the appellant that the expression ''entertain'' found in the proviso refers to the initiation of the proceedings and not to the stage when the court takes up the application for consideration. This contention was rejected by the High Court relying on the decision of that court in Kundan Lal Vs. Jagan Nath Sharma, . The same view had been taken by the said High Court in Dhoom Chand Jain Vs. Chaman Lal Gupta and Another, and Haji Rahim Bux and Sons and Others Vs. Firm Samiullah and Sons, and again in Mahavir Singh and Another Vs. Gauri Shankar and Others, . These decisions have interpreted the expression "entertain" as meaning ''adjudicate upon'' or ''proceed to consider on merits''. This view of the High Court has been accepted as correct by this Court in Lakshmi Rattan Engineering Works Ltd. Vs. Asstt. Commr. Sales Tax, Kanpur and Another, . We are bound by that decision and as such we are unable to accept the contention of the appellant that CI. (b) of the proviso did not apply to the present proceedings.

Section 417(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure providing that no application u/s 417(3) for special leave to appeal from an order of acquittal shall be entertained by the High Court after the expiry of 60 days from the date of the order of acquittal was considered by the Apex Court in the judgment in Lala Ram Vs. Hari Ram, . In that judgment meaning of the word ''entertain'' was understood by the Apex Court thus;

The learned counsel also suggests that the word ''entertain'' which occurs in Section 417(4) means ''to deal with or hear'' and in this connection he relies on the judgment of this Court in Lakshmi Rattan Engineering Works Ltd. Vs. Asstt. Commr. Sales Tax, Kanpur and Another, . It seems to us that in this context ''entertain'' means ''file or received by the Court'' and it has no reference to the actual hearing of the application for leave to appeal; otherwise the result would be that in many cases applications for leave to appeal would be barred because the applications have not been put up for hearing before the High Court within 60 days of the order of acquittal.

This Court also had occasion to consider the meaning of the word ''entertained'' in the context of the proviso to Regulation 28(5) of the Lakshadweep Panchayat Rules and Regulations, 1994, in the judgment in C.N. Hamzakoya Vs. The Administrator, Kavaratti Island and Others, . Following the judgment in Lala Ram AIR 1970 S.C. 1092 it was held that in the setting in which the word entertain occurs it should bear the meaning "receiving for consideration". Although it is true that, in Nani v. District Collector 1998 (1) KLT 705 and Thomas v. District Collector 2000 (2) KLT 160 it has been held by this Court that during the pendency of an appeal, an application u/s 28A of the Act should not be disposed of, question to be considered in this case is whether in view of Rule 12A(v), pendency of an appeal enables the applicant to file the petition u/s 28A within the 3 months from the date of disposal of the appeal. I have already referred to the Apex Court judgment in Jose Antonio Cruz Dos R. Rodriguese and another Vs. Land Acquisition Collector and another, , where it has been held that the application has to be filed within 3 months of the award passed by the reference Court u/s 18 of the Act. If I am to accept the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that in view of Rule 12A(v) of the Rules the 3 months period commences only after the disposal of the appeal, such a view will be contrary to the principles laid down by the Apex Court judgment and against Section 28A itself. If such an interpretation is accepted, the Rule being a piece of subordinate legislation, it will have to be held invalid as being contrary to the parent Act. As far as Rule 12A(v) of the Rules is concerned, this Rule only prohibits "the entrainment" of an application during the pendency of the appeal. From the judgments referred to above, it is clear that the meaning of the word ''entertained'' has to be understood in the context in which the legislature has used this word. Therefore if the meaning of the word is so understood, it means either to deal with or admit to consideration and it does not mean that the actual filing of the application u/s 28A is postponed till the appeal is disposed of. If that be the legal position, Ext. P-3 application dated 3-8-2010 and filed on 17-8-2010 for re-determination of the compensation u/s 28A of the Act is not maintainable. In such circumstances, petitioner cannot seek any direction from this Court for the consideration of Ext. P-3 application.

For these reasons, I do not find any merit in the Writ Petition and the Writ Petition is dismissed. No costs.