Bombay High Court
Smt. Laxmibai Narayan Patil And Another vs State Of Maharashtra And Another on 3 February, 1997
Equivalent citations: AIR1997BOM212, 1997(3)BOMCR229, (1997)2BOMLR70, 1997(2)MHLJ353, AIR 1997 BOMBAY 212, (1997) 2 ALLMR 260 (BOM), 1997 (2) ALL MR 260, (1997) 2 CIVLJ 880, (1997) 2 LANDLR 231, (1997) 2 MAH LJ 353, (1998) 1 CURCC 104, (1997) 2 LACC 13, (1997) 3 BOM CR 229
ORDER Dr. B. P. Saraf, J.
1. The petitioners are aggieved by the order of the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Raigad, Alibag (Respondent No.2), where by the application of the petitioners for reference to Court under Section 18(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1984(the "Act") was dismissed on the ground that it had not been made within six weeks of the receipt of the notice under Section 12(2) of the Act.
2. The land of the petitioners was acquired by the respondent No. 2 under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act. The award was made under Section 11 of the Act on 8th August, 1989. The petitioners were not present or represented before the Special Land Acquisition officer at the time he made his award. Thereafter, the petitioners were served with a notice under Section 12(2) of the Act on 22nd August 1989. The petitioners applied for reference under Section 18(1) of the Act on 5th January, 1990, However, the said application having not been made within six weeks of the receipt of the notice under Section 12(2) of the Act, was dismissed by the respondent No. 2, as being barred by limitation. The petitioners have challenged the above order.
3. We have heard Mr. Pai, the learned counsel for the petitioners, who sumits that the application of petitioners under Section 18 of the Act is not barred by limitation. The case of the petitioners is that after receipt of the notice under Section 12(2) of the Act on 22nd August 1989, the petitioners made an application for certified copy of the award on 12th September, 1989. The certified copy was received by them on 19th December, 1989. After receipt of the certified copy, the petitioners prepared the application under Section 18(1) of the Act and filed the same on 5th January, 1990. The learned counsel submits that the limitation of six weeks prescribed in the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 18 of the Act should be computed from the date of the receipt of the certified copy of the order by the petitioners and not from the date of receipt of the notice under Section 12(2) of the Act and if it is so computed, the application of the petitioners is within time. Mr. Bagla, learned counsel appearing for the respondents, however, submits that in a case where notice has been served under Section 12(2) of the Act, the application for reference under Section 18 of the Act should be made within six weeks of the receipt of such notice. According to Mr. Bagla, there is no basis and/or justification for the submission of the counsel for the petitioners that the limitation should be computed from the date of the receipt of the certified copy of the award or that in computing the period of limitation of six weeks, the time requisite for obtaining the certified copy of the award should be excluded. Reliance is placed in support of this contention on the decisions of the Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Satinder Bir Singh, and officer on Special Duty (Land Acqn.) v. Shah Manilal Chandulal, .
4. We have carefully considered the rival submissions. Section 18 of the Act, which provides for a reference to Court and procedure thereon, reads as follows:-
"18. Reference to Court.-- (1) Any person interested who has not accepted the award may, by written application to the Collector, require that the matter be referred by the Collector for the determination of the Court, whether his objection be to the measurement of the land, the amount of the compensation, the persons to whom it is payable, or the apportionment of the compensation among the person interested.
(2) The application shall state the grounds on which objection to the award is taken :
Provided that every such application shall be made.--
(a) if the person making it was present or represented before the Collector at the time when he made his award, within six weeks from the date of the Collector's award :
(b) in other cases, within six weeks of the receipt of the notice from the Collector under Section 12, sub-section (2), or within six months from the date of the Collector's award, whichever period shall first expire."
It is clear from a plain reading of the above section that any person interested, objecting to the award made under Section 11 of the Act, may require that the matter be referred by the Collector for determination of the Court. The objection may be in regard to any of the following matters :
(1) The measurement of the land;
(2) the amount of compensation;
(3) the persons to whom it is payable;
(4) the apportionment of the compensation among the persons interested.
The requisition for reference has to be made to the Collector by written application stating therein the grounds on which objection to the award is taken. The application, however, must be made within the time specified in the proviso to sub-section (2) which specifies the following periods of limitation :
(1) In a case where the person making the application was present, or represented before the Collector at the time when he made his award -- six weeks from the date of Collector's award.
(2) In a case where the person making the application was not present or represented before the Collector at the time the time the award was made--
(i) six weeks from the date of receipt of the notice from the Collector under sub-section (2) of Section 12 of the Act, or
(ii) within six months from the date of the Collector's award.
whichever period shall first expire.
5. It is clear from the above that the period of limitation is six weeks from the date of the Collector's award in a case where the person making the application was present or represented before the Collector at the time he made the award. If he was not so present or represented, the period of limitation is six weeks from the receipt of notice from the Collector under sub-section (2) of Section 12 of the Act or six months from the date of the award, whichever period shall first expire. The basic period of limitation in both the clauses is thus six weeks. In the first case, it runs from the date of the Collector's award. That is so because in that case, the person concerned was present or represented before the Collector at the time the award was made. In case he was not so present or represented, the period of limitation has been made to run from the date of receipt of notice from the Collector under sub-section (2) of Section 12 of the Act. It may be proper at this stage to set-out Section 12 of the Act, which reads as below:
"12. Award of Collector when to be final -- (1) Such award shall be filed in the Collector's office and shall, except as hereinafter provided, be final and conclusive evidence, as between the Collector and the persons interested, whether they have respectively appeared before the Collector or not, of the true area and value of the land, and the apportionment of the compensation among the persons interested.
(2) The Collector shall give immediate notice of his award to such of the persons interested as are not present personally or by their representatives when the award is made".
It is clear from the above section that the award filed in the Collector's office becomes final and conclusive evidence, as between the Collector and the persons interested, of the (i) true area and value of the land (ii) of the apportionment of the compensation among the persons interested.
Sub-section (2) mandates the Collector to give notice of his award to such of the persons interested as were not present personally or by their representatives when the award was made. Thus, both the clauses (a) and (b) of the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 18 provide the limitation of six weeks, in the first case from the date of the award, which, as held by the Supreme Court in Kaliyappan v. State of Kerala, , means signing of the award and where the person was not present at the time of making the award, from the date of the receipt of the notice of the award from the Collector under sub-section (2) of Section 12 of the Act. In any other case, the period of limitation is six months from the date of the Collector's award which expression, as interpreted by Supreme Court in Harish Chandra v. Dy. L.A. Officer, , means the knowledge of the award. In the instant case, the petitioners were not present or represented when the award was made by the Collector. The Collector, therefore, served a notice on them under Section 12(2) of the Act on 22nd August, 1989. By the said notice, the petitioners were informed about the area of the land, measurement of the land and the amount of compensation. In such a case, the limitation for making an application under Section 18 of the Act would be six weeks from the receipt of the above notice under Section 12(2) of the Act. Admittedly, the application for reference under Section 18(1) of the Act was not filed within that period. The petitioners applied for certified copy and only after getting the same made the application under Section 18(1) of the Act on 5th January, 1990 i.e. after about 14 weeks from the date of receipt of the notice under Section 12(2) of the Act.
6. Mr. Pai, learned counsel for the petitioners, contends that the limitation should be calculated from the date of receipt of the certified copy of the award because without the same it was not possible for the petitioners to know as to how the compensation had been calculated and to make an effective application. We have carefully considered the above submission. However, on the face of clear language of the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 18 of the Act, we find it difficult to accept the same. Obviously, the present case falls under the first part of clause (b) of the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 18 because the petitioners had received the notice under sub-section (2) of Section 12 of the Act from the Collector. Once the notice was received by the petitioners, the petitioners must be fixed with the knowledge of the contents of the award. It is then not open to the petitioners to contend that they had no knowledge of the contents of the award till they got certified copy of the award and that the period of limitation of six weeks should be calculated from the receipt of the certified copy. Such a contention goes counter to the very scheme and puport of the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 18 of the Act. As observed by the Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Qaiser Jehan Begum (supra), if the award is communicated to a party under Section 12(2) of the Act, the party must be obviously fixed with the knowledge of the contents of the award whether he reads it or not. Similarly when a party is present in Court either personally or through his representative, it must be presumed that he knows the contents of the award. The contents may be known either actually or constructively. As stated earlier, notice under Section 12(2) is notice of the award to such of the persons interested as were not present personally or by their representatives when the award was made. Notice of the award under Section 12(2) of the Act obviously means notice of the essential contents of the award viz. true area and value of the land, and the apportionment of the compensation amongst the persons interested. In view of the above, in the facts of the present case, in our opinion, the respondent No. 2 was right in rejecting the application of the petitioners under Section 18 of the Act as being barred by limitation, the same having been made after the expiry of the period of six weeks from the date of service of notice under Section 12(2) of the Act.
7. Our attention was drawn by the learned counsel for the respondents to the decision of the Supreme Court in State of Punjab v. Satinder Bir Singh, . In that case also, identical submissions were made by the person interested, viz. the notice under Section 12(2) did not contain all the details as to how the market value of the land was evaluated, and as such, they were not in a position to know the determination of the compensation for making an application for reference under Section 18. It was contended that, in that view of the matter, the notice under Section 12(2) of the Act was not a proper notice and limitation would not run from the receipt of the same. This contention was accepted by the High Court. On appeal by the State, the Supreme Court reversed the decision of the High Court and observed at page 1972; of AIR SCW:
"It would thus be clear that the person interested who had received the compensation under protest is required to state in his application for reference the grounds on which he objects to the compensation awarded by the Collector within six weeks from the date of the award when either he was present or was represented by a counsel or agent, or within six weeks from the date of the receipt of the notice from the Collector sent under Section 12(2), or within six months from the date of the award made by the Collector whichever period should first expire. In this case since the respondent had admittedly received the notice from the Collector under Section 12(2) on 22-9-1970, by operation of first part of clause (b) of the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 18 the respondent was enjoined to make the application under Section 18 within six weeks from the date of receipt of the notice. Since admittedly, he did not make the application within six weeks, it was barred by limitation."
The Supreme Court also observed that the statutory operation of limitation mentioned by Section 18(2) does not depend on the communication of the notice in a particular form when the Act or the Rules has not prescribed any form and held that the limitation begins to operate from the moment the notice under Section 12(2) is received or as envisaged by Section 18(2). Considering the fact that in the case before it, it was not in dispute that the notice under Section 12(2) contained the amount awarded and the area acquired the Supreme Court held that the High Court was in error in holding that since the notice did not contain all the details of the consideration and as to how the compensation had been determined, it was not a proper notice, and therefore, limitation did not begin to run form the date of the receipt of the notice. The above decision, in our opinion, is a clear authority for the proposition that in cases falling under the first part of clause (b) of the proviso to Section 12(2) of the Act, the limitation would run from the date of receipt of the notice under Section 12(2). The date of receipt of the certified copy has no relevance for that purpose.
8. It is also clear from the decision of the Supreme Court in Officer on Special Duty (Land Acqn.) v. Shah Manilal Chandulal, that the Limitation Act has no application to proceedings before the Collector for reference and, therefore, Section 5 of the Limitation Act cannot be applied for extension of the period of limitation prescribed under the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 18. In the above case, the application under Section 18(1) of the Act was found to have been filed beyond the period of six weeks from the date of making of the award. The delay was sought to be justified on the ground that an application for certified copy of the award had been filed by the applicant and only after its supply, in consultation with its counsel, the reference application could be filed. This contention found favour with the High Court. The High Court, accordingly, condoned the delay, and directed the Special Land Acquisition Officer to make the reference. On appeal by the Special Land Acquisition officer, it was held by the Supreme Court that the application was barred by limitation and the Collector had no power to extend time for making an application under Section 18(1) of the Act for reference to the Court. The Supreme Court in the above case also referred to its earlier decision in State of Punjab v. Satinder Bir Singh (supra).
9. From the above discussion, it is clear that in the instant case, the application for reference under Section 18(1) of the Act was made beyond the period of limitation prescribe for that purpose. The respondent No. 2, Special Land Acquisition Officer was, therefore, justified in rejecting the same as being barred by limitation. In view of the above, we do not find any merit ion this writ petition. The same is therefore, dismissed. No costs.
10. Petition dismissed.