Madras High Court
K. Jagannathan And Anr. vs The Special Deputy Collector, (Land ... on 17 July, 1990
Equivalent citations: (1991)153MLJ1
ORDER Kanakaraj, J.
1. The appellants are owners of 17 cents of land in Survey No. 44/2-C, 1.97 acres in Survey No. 45/1 and 33 cents in Survey No. 45/2 Part in Valasaravakkam Village, Saidapet Taluk, Chengalpattu District. The Notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') was published in the Tamil Nadu Gazette dated 11.6.1975 proposing to acquire a large extent of land including the abovesaid lands of the appellants for what is called the Kalaignar Karunanidhi Nagar Extension Scheme. According to the appellants, there was no publication of the substance of the notification in the locality. They received notice under Rule 3 of the Rules framed under Section 55 of the Act to submit their objections at the enquiry proposed under Section 5-Aof the Act. They filed their objections but the same were overruled. The declaration under Section 6 of the Act was duly published. They were served with notices under Sections 9(3) and 10 of the Act. They appeared at the enquiry on 24.2.1980 and submitted their objections. According to the appellants, till they filed the writ petition No. 11646 of 1985, no award had been passed. On the above facts, the appellants sought for a writ of certiorari to quash notification under Section 4(1) of the Act published in the Gazette on 11.6.1975 insofar as the lands of the appellants are concerned. The writ petition was dismissed on 7.1.1986. It is against the order, the present writ appeal has been filed. Pending disposal of the writ appeals, in respect of all the lands which are not covered by any stay order, the Land Acquisition Officer passed the award in the year 1986 within two years from the date of the commencement of the Land Acquisition Act 68 of 1984. In respect of the lands of the appellants, there is a stay granted by this Court in C.M.P. No. 2672 of 1986 against the passing of the Award and therefore the award has not yet been passed in respect of the appellants' lands.
2. Mr. M. Raghavan, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the appellants, raises two contentions: (1) The substance of the notification under Section 4(1) of the Act was not published in convenient places of the locality and this being a mandatory provision, the entire land acquisition proceedings are vitiated. In any event there is long delay in such publication. (2) The long delay in passing an Award and offering compensation for the lands acquired, resulting in delayed payment of compensation also vitiates the acquisition proceedings. It is not disputed that the awards have been passed only in the year 1986 in respect of the lands other than those of the appellants.
3. In support of the first contention, the learned Counsel for the appellants relies on the decision in State of Mysore v. Abdul Razak Sahib . The Supreme Court holds as follows:
4. With the above background, we have to consider the scope of Section 4(1). Under certain circumstances publications in the Official Gazettes are presumed to be notice to all concerned. But in the case of a notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, the law has prescribed that in addition to the publication of the notification in the Official Gazette the Collector must also give publicity of the substance of the notification in the concerned locality. Unless both these conditions are satisfied, Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act cannot be said to have been complied. The publication of the notice in the locality is a mandatory requirement. It has an important purpose behind it. In the absence of such publication, the interested persons may not be able to file their objections about the acquisition proceedings and they will be deprived of the right of representation provided under Section 5-A, which is very valuable right.
Therefore, the publication of the substance of the notification in convenient places of the village is a mandatory requirement. In The Collector (District Magistrate), Allahabad v. Raja Ram Jaiswal , the Supreme Court has reiterated the said proposition. In fact the Supreme Court has pointed out in this decision that even if the landowner has filed objection in pursuance of the Gazette Notification, it is still mandatory on the part of the Government to satisfy that they have complied with the second part of Section 4(1) requiring the publication of the substance in the locality. The following passage is relevant for the purpose of this writ appeal:
The expression, 'such notification' in the latter part of Section 4(1) and sequence of events therein enumerated would clearly spell out that first the Government should reach a decision to acquire land, then publish a notification under Section 4(1) and simultaneously or within a reasonable time from the date of the publication of the notification cause a notice to be published containing substance of such notification which is published. Obviously, therefore, there cannot be a publication in the locality prior to the issuance of the notification.
In Deepak Pahwa v. Lt. Governor of Delhi , the second aspect of the case whether the Gazette Publication and the publication of the substance in the. locality should be simultaneously or can be separated by gap of time was discussed in detail. The Supreme Court points out as follows:
But since the steps contemplated by Section 4(2) cannot be undertaken unless publication is made and public notice given as contemplated by Section 4(1), it is implicit that the publication and the public notice must be contemporaneous though not simultaneously or immediately after one another. Naturally, contemporaneity may involve a gap of time and by the very nature of the things, the publication in the official Gazette and the public notice in the locality must necessarily be separated by a gap of time. This does not mean that the publication and the public notice may be separated by a long interval of time. What is necessary is that the continuity of action should not appear to be broken by a deep gap. If there is publication in the Gazette and if there is public notice in the locality, the requirements of Section 4(1) must be held to be satisfied unless the two are unlinked from each other by a gap of time so large as may lead one to the prima facie conclusion of lack of bona fides in the proceedings for acquisition. If the notification and the public notice are separated by such a large gap of time, it may become necessary to probe further to discover if there is any cause for the delay and if the delay has caused prejudice to anyone.
Later on, the Supreme Court quotes with approval the observations of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh which runs as follows:
What all that is required is that before anything is done as contemplated by Sub-section (2), the substance of the Section 4(1) Notification must be published in the locality of the land. Several times it may prove to be a physical impossibility if simultaneous publication is insisted upon. It is not possible to think that the Legislature has provided for an impracticable and at the same time unnecessary task. What Section 4(1) requires is that Section 4(1) Notification must be published in the Official Gazette and its substance at convenient places in the said locality.
4. The principle of law with reference to the publication of the substance of Section 4(1) Notification in the locality is thus clear. The Supreme Court has pointed out that there can be a reasonable gap of time between the Gazette publication and the publication of the substance in the locality. As to what is reasonable time gap has, of course, to be decided on the facts and circumstances of each case. For instance in G. Nandakumar v. State of Tamil Nadu represented by the Secretary to Government, Housing and Urban Development Department, Madras-9, 1986 Writ, L.R. 164, the gap of six months between the Gazette Notification and the date of publication in the locality was considered to be too long. In deciding the question whether the time gap is fatal to the acquisition proceedings or not, we have to satisfy ourselves about two conditions as pointed out by the Supreme Court in Deepak Pahwa v. Lt. Governor of Delhi as stated above. (1) To discover if there is any cause for the delay and if the delay has caused prejudice to any one; (2) Whether any act has been done under Sub-section (2) of Section 4 before the substance of Section 4(1) published in the locality. On neither of these points, learned Counsel for the appellants has placed any materials to come to the conclusion that the delay in this case is fatal. We will now refer to the facts of the case by reference to the record to find out whether there was publication in the locality and if so whether it was within a reasonable time from the Gazette notification.
5. Learned Government Pleader in his arguments brings out the following facts: The notification under Section 4(1) of the Act was published in the Gazette on 11.6.1975. As to the date of publication of the substance in the locality, there is some discrepancy in the averments in the counter-affidavit and the actual records. According to the counter-affidavit, the substance of the notification under Section 4(1) was published on 5.8.1975 in the locality. But it is safer to go by the records which have been produced before us. By letter date 18.7.1975, the Land Acquisition Officer has addressed as many as six Statutory Authorities directing them to publish the notification under Section 4(1) in the Notice Board of the respective offices and furnish the necessary Certificates for having published the same. While sending a copy thereof to the Special Revenue Inspector, the following instructions have been given:
He is directed to publish the notice in the Village and obtain and submit necessary Certificate of publication from the Village Munsif.
The records also show that there are Certificates regarding the publication of the notification under Section 4(1) in the Notice Board of the several offices to whom the requisition was sent. Such publication is on different dates. In the Office of the Special Deputy Collector, it has been pasted in the Notice Board on 5.8.1975. In another, it has been pasted on 20.7.1975. The only thing that is missing in the record, is the Certificate of the Village Munsif for having published the notice in the Village. But there is contemporaneous record in the form of a questionnaire with answers prepared by the Land Acquisition Officer on 17.5.1978 and sent to the Government at the time of approval of the Declaration under Section 6. The relevant details so far as the question of publication of the substance are as follows:
1. Date of Publication of * 4(1) Notification in * the Gazette. * ..11.6.75.
2. Date of publication of public notice of the substance of 4(1) notification in the locality as per Rule 1 of the Rules framed under Section 55(1) of the Land Acquisition Act with details of the (Government) places where published.
3. Whether copies of public notice were fixed up in the office of the L.A.O. and the Tahsildar as required under Rule 1 of the Rules framed under Section 55(1) of the Land Acquisition Act.
4. Date of expiry of 30 days time allowed within which objection should be filed.
As will be seen from the answer to question No. 2, there was publication of the substance in the locality on 21.7,1975. On an examination of the records, we are satisfied that there has been publication of the substance of the notification under Section 4(1) in the locality in accordance with the second part of Section 4(1) of the Act. In this connection, we have to take note of the fact that if really the appellants wanted to question the publication of the substance in the Village they should have approached this Court long earlier. The notifications having been made in the year 1975, the filing of the writ petition in October, 1985 cannot be tolerated. In fact, this very question has been answered in favour of the Government in State of Mysore v. V.K. Kangan . The following passage clearly illustrates the point:
The notification under Section 4 was published on 13.4.1967. Objections were filed by the respondent under Section 5-A of the Act. The Deputy Commissioner submitted his report to the Government. The Government overruled the objections. The notification under Section 6 was published in the Gazette on 19.10.1968. The writ petition challenging the Validity of the notifications was filed some time in July or August, 1969. We do not think that the respondent was entitled to challenge the validity of the notification under Section 4 of the Act as the writ petition challenging the notification was filed after an unreasonable lapse of time. If public notice as required by Section 4 of the Act was not given and that would per se vitiate the notification under Section 4, the appellant should have challenged its validity within a reasonable time of the publication of the notification. The respondent knew of the notification and filed objection under Section 5-A of the Act. In these circumstances, we see no reason to accept the submission of counsel.
6. Having found that there was publication of the substance of the Notification in the locality, the next question is whether there was inordinate delay in the publication of the substance in the locality. As will be seen from the dates given above, the Gazette publication was on 11.6.1975. The publication in the Notice Board was between 20.7.1975 and 5.8.1975. Applying the two tests relied on by the Supreme Court to which we have already made reference, we do not think that the time gap between the publication of the Gazette notification and the publication of the substance in the locality is too long and has caused prejudice to the appellants. The appellants having not laid the foundation for satisfying the above two tests and having regard to the materials available, we hold that the publication of the substance in the locality has been made within a reasonable time from the date of publication in the Gazette.
7. The second contention of the learned Counsel for the appellants is that the long delay in passing the award and completing the acquisition proceedings has vitiated the entire acquisition proceedings. To bring home this point, the learned Counsel for the appellants refers to the preamble of the Land Acquisition Act, Sections 11(2), 15, 16 and 48 of the Land Acquisition Act. It is not necessary to quote the above provisions of the law. The sum and substance of the argument of the learned Counsel for the appellants is that the reference to the said provisions would show that the acquisition comprises of a single process. According to the learned Counsel for the appellants, acquisition and payment of compensation in R.C. Cooper v. Union of India . Reliance is placed on paras 92, 103 and 125 of the said judgment. Similarly, a reference is made to the decision in State of Madras v. D. Namasivaya . While the reference to the Judgment in R.C. Cooper v. Union of India is for the purpose of finding out as to what is generally meant by compensation, the reference to the decision in State of Madras v. D. Namasivaya is, according to us, misconceived. In the latter case, the Court was concerned with the Madras Lignite (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1953 which provided for compensation for acquisition of lignite bearing lands. Under the said Land Acquisition Act, 1953, as amended, the land is to be assessed on the market value of the land prevailing on April 28, 1947 and not on the dale of which the Notification is issued under Section 4(1) of the Act. In the instant case, that is not the position. It is not disputed that compensation is being awarded on the basis of the market value on the date of the notification under Section 4(1). The learned Counsel for the appellants then relies on certain passage in the decision in Sanapala Suryanarayana v. State of Andhra Pradesh by the Secretary, Health, Housing and Municipal Administration and two Ors. (1982) 1 An. W.R. 315. This judgment has been set aside by a Division Bench of the same Court in the decision in Singareni Colleries Co. Ltd. v. Satyanarana Murthy (1984) 2 An.W.R. 253 on the first point, while tile decision was upheld oil the second point. The learned Counsel for the appellants is relying upon certain passages which have been set aside by the Division Bench of the same Court. We will refer to the second point that is decided by the learned Single Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and which has been affirmed by the Division Bench at a later stage. We are not impressed by the two English decisions in Simpsons Motor Sales Ltd. v. Hendon Corporation (1962) 3 All. E.R. 75 and in Simpsons Motor Sales Ltd. v. Hendon Corporation (1962) 2 All. E.R. 484. his is because the conditions prevailing in this Country are quite different from the conditions prevailing in England; Secondly, the Land Acquisition Act has been amended, in the year 1984 which has a significant impact on the arguments now advanced by the learned Counsel. The next judgment referred to by the learned Counsel for the Appellants is in Sree Vengeeswarar Alagarperumal Devasthanam by its Hereditary Trustee, Etc. v. The State of Tamil Nadu by its Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Fort St. George, Madras-9 and Anr. (1984) 2 M.L.J. 427 and in Special Deputy Collector v. Kuppu Gounder 98 L.W. 846. Mohan, J. (as he then was) in the first quoted decision refers to two judgments. One is by the Andhra Pradesh High Court and the other is by a Full Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The proposition of law is laid down as follows:
7. Adopting the reasoning of the Full Bench, it is seen in this case that there is an unexplained inordinate delay, which tends to hold the rights of the citizens, at ransom, whose properties are sought to be acquired. They are denied the compensation in spite of reasonable time. The prices being pegged down to the Section 4(1) notification such compensations if not paid within a reasonable time, they would be sharp and pointed pieces of evidence to establish the lack of bona fides for the exercise of power. Judicial notice can be taken and indeed has to be taken, of a continued and inexorable uptrend in the prices of real estate. Consequently, if there exists no explanation at all for the inordinate delay in finalising the land acquisition proceedings and thereby concretise the so-called public purpose, the inference inevitably arises that no immediate public purpose existed or was in sight which could be put in practical shape. If that be so, it follows that the exercise of the power of eminent domain was a colourable attempt to freeze prices forthwith, for an acquisition years later when they may well be double or treble of the existing prices. For a Welfare State to do so at the cost of the citizen, would thus be something which would be a fraud on the power v conferred by the Statute.
In Special Deputy Collector (L.A.) v. Kuppu Gounder 98 L.W. 846 a Division Bench of this Court has practically adopted the reasoning of judgment in Sree Vengeeswarar Alagarperumal Devasthanam, by its Hereditary Trustee, etc. v. The State of Tamil Nadu by its Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Fort St. George, Madras-9 and Anr. (1984) 2 M.L.J. 427. In Sanapala Suryanarayana v. State of Andhra Pradesh by the Secretary, Health, Housing and Municipal Administration and two Ors. (1982) 1 An.W.R. 315, as we have already pointed out, the Court has held in favour of the land owner on two grounds. (1) Section 23(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 which directs compensation to be paid on the basis of the market value on the date of the notification under Section 4(1) is void and unconstitutional. (2) Long delay between the notification under Section 4(1) and the date of the award will vitiate the entire acquisition proceedings. The Division Bench while hearing the appeal against the said judgment categorically set aside the first finding of the learned single Judge, that Section 23 is ultra vires the Constitution. However, on the second point, the Division Bench has also held that the inordinate delay on the completion of the Award enquiry resulting in delayed payment of compensation had vitiated the acquisition proceedings. 8. Therefore, the argument of the learned Counsel for the appellants is supported by these judgments viz., in Sree Vengeeswarar Alagarperumal Devasthanam, by its Hereditary Trustee, etc. v. The State of Tamil Nadu by its Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Fort St. George, Madras-9 and Anr. (1984) 2 M.L.J. 427, Special Deputy Collector (L.A.) v. Kuppu Gounder 98 L.W. 846 (D.B.) and in Singareni Colleries Co. Ltd. v. Satyanarana Murthy (1984) 2 An.W.R. 253. The learned Counsel for the appellants wants to strengthen his argument based on the said decisions by referring to Board Standing Orders (now known as the Revenue Standing Orders) 90 Part 12. The relevant portion of the said standing Order is quoted below:
After the publication of the declaration above referred to, the Collector or other Officer specially appointed to perform the functions of a Collector will proceed to acquire the land in the manner directed by the Act. Notice must be issued quickly and the award passed as promptly as possible. If a number of fields are being acquired and the enquiry has not been completed for all of them, an award may be passed for those fields for which the enquiry has been completed and a separate award or awards may be passed subsequently for the remaining fields. The award should not be delayed merely because the ownership of the land in dispute....
Learned Counsel for the appellants also relies upon the decision in B.S. Minhas v. Indian Statistical Institute and Ajay Hasia v. Khalid Mujib Sebravardi for the proposition that arbitrariness in executive action should be avoided.
9. To reach the same conclusion, the learned Counsel for the appellants relies upon the second proviso to Article 31-A of the Constitution of India. The second proviso reads as follows:
Provided further that where any law makes any provision for the acquisition by the state of any estate and where any land comprised therein is held by a person under his personal cultivation, it shall nor be lawful for the State to acquire any portion of such land as is within the ceiling limit applicable to him under any law for the time being in force or any building or structure standing thereon or appurtenant thereto, unless the law relating to the acquisition of such land, building or structure, provides for payment of compensation at a rate which shall not be less than the market value thereof.
The question whether Article 31-A of the Constitution of India can at all be invoked in the present case is doubtful. Article 31-A(1) refers to the law providing for certain aspects as enumerated under Clauses (a) to (e) of Article 31-A(1) and we are unable to see how the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 can be brought under any of the clauses mentioned in Article 31-A(1). We need not even go to that extent, because the second proviso only relates to a law which makes provision for acquisition by the State of any "estate". Estate is defined later in Article 31-A(2). In fact the proviso refers to land in personal cultivation and within the ceiling limit applicable to the person under any law for the time being in force. Thus, the proviso seems to be referring to a case of a law providing agrarian reforms or a law relating to land tenures. 10. Assuming, without admitting, that the said proviso will include the lands of the appellants, there is no material before us to come to the conclusion that the lands were in the personal cultivation of the appellants and within the ceiling limit applicable to them. Even if this is granted, the Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in the decision in Singareni Colleries Co. Ltd. represented by its Chairman, Kothagitdem, Khammam District v. V. Satyanarana Murthy (1984) 2 An.W.R. 253, already referred to, analysis the Applicability of the Proviso to Article 31-A(1) and Section 23 of the Land Acquisition Act and holds that it will have no application. We are in respectful agreement with this part of the judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Further, the proviso only says that the law must make provision for payment of compensation at a rate which shall not be less then the market value thereof. The Land Acquisition Act, 1894 also provides only for payment of compensation according to the market value of the lands. The argument is that the compensation is the money equivalent as on the date of expropriation and must enable one to purchase any other bind of the same value. The Land Acquisition Act directs the payment of compensation as per the market value prevailing on the date of the notification under Section 4(1), and it provides for interest and sollatium to bring it on par with the market value on the date of expropriation. We will refer to these aspects of the Land Acquisition Act a little later. Suffice it to say that looked at from any angle, the second Proviso to Article 31-A of the Constitution of India does not advance the case of the appellants.
11. We now come to the last and important aspect of the case as to whether the long delay in making the award will vitiate the acquisition proceedings. In this connection, we have to remember that prior to the Amendment Act 68 of 1984, there was no time limit fixed before which the Land Acquisition Officer should pass the award. Courts were vested with several cases where there were unreasonable delay in passing the award resulting in inadequate compensation being offered to the land owners because of the inflation of the money value. The argument that by issuing a notification under Section 4(1), the Government paged down the prices and offered the compensation leisurely after a long delay found favour with the Court. We are in respectful agreement with the observations of Mohan, J., (as he then was) in Sree Vengeeswarar Alagarperumal Devasthanam, by its Hereditary Trustee, etc. v. The State of Tamil Nadu by its Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department Fort St. George, Madras-9 and Anr. (1984) 2 M.L.J. 427, as affirmed in Special Deputy Collector (I.A.) v. Kuppu Gounder, 98 L.W. 846 and as repeated in Singareni Colleries Co. Ltd represented by its Chairman, Kothagudem, Khammam District v. V. Satyanarana Murthy (1984) 2 An.W.R. 253. Now let us turn to the statement of objects and reasons of the amendment Act 68 of 1984. The first paragraph of the statement of objects and reasons contains the following words:
The pendency of acquisition proceedings for long periods often causes hardship to the affected parties and renders unrealistic the scale of compensation offered to them.
More important is the following statements in paragraph 2(x):
As a large number of cases for the acquisition of land are pending before various authorities for a very long time and payment of the market value of the land obtaining on the date of preliminary notification under Section 4 of the Act in respect of such land is likely to be unrealistic and iniquitous, it is proposed to provide for payment of simple interest at ten per cent per annum on the amount of compensation for the period commencing from the date of issue of the notification under Section 4 of the Act to the date of tender of payment or deposit of compensation awarded by the Collector in respect of all pending proceedings on the 30th April, 1982, the date when the earlier Bill, for the amendment of the Act was introduced in the House of the People.
It is thus clear that the Parliament has taken note of this long delay in passing awards has precisely for that reason, enhanced the rate of interest and doubled the percentage of solatium payable to the land owners. We have also to take note of the fact that until the award is passed and possession is taken by the Government, the land owners have the benefit of the use of the lands and the income thereof. But what is more important for our case is the introduction of Section 11-A of the Act which is quoted as below:
11. A. Period within which an award shall be made. The Collector shall make an award under Section 11 within a period of two years from the dale of the publication of the declaration and if no award is made within that period, the entire proceedings for the acquisition of the land shall lapse:
Provided that in a case where the said declaration has been published before the commencement of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1894, the award shall be made within a period of two years from such commencement. Explanation : In computing the period of two years referred to in this section, the period during which any action or proceeding to be taken in pursuance of the said declaration is stayed by an order of a Court shall be excluded.
Therefore, when the Parliament has specifically paid attention to this very aspect of the case and has said that in respect of declarations which had been published before the amendment Act, the Award shall be made within a period of two years from such commencement, will it be open to the Court to hold that even in respect of such awards made within two years from such commencement of the amending Act, they are vitiated because of delay? In our considered opinion, when the Parliament itself has taken note of the difficulty and has decided to give relief in a particular manner, unless the said section itself is challenged before us in a manner known to law, it will not be proper for the Court to hold that even awards passed within the said period of two years are vitiated and the entire acquisition proceedings should be set at naught. The author of the judgment Justice S. Mohan (as he then was in Sree Vengeeswarar Alagarpe-rumal Devasthanam, by its Hereditary Trustee, etc. v. The State of Tamil Nadu by its Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Fort St. George, Madras-9 and Anr. (1984) 2 M.L.J. 427, has himself rendered an elaborate judgment considering the introduction of Section 11-A of the Act and how his earlier decision will not apply after the amending Act. This judgment is rendered in Susan Job and others v. State of Tamil Nadu represented by the Secretary to Government, Industries Department, Fort St George, Madras-9 and Ors. W.P. Nos. 4956 and 4991 of 1986 dated 13.8.1986. We are in respectful agreement with the views expressed by the learned Judge in the said judgment dated 13.8.1986. In Kaliyappan v. State of Kerala and Ors. , two grounds on which the acquisition proceedings were challenged in that case, were set out as follows:
(i) that the award not having been made within a period of two years from the date of the commencement of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984, that is, 24.9.1984, as required by the proviso to Section 11-A of the Act, the acquisition proceeding should be deemed to have lapsed; and
(ii) that the land acquisition proceeding was liable to be quashed on the ground that there was inordinate delay in making the award.
We are concerned with the second ground decided in the said case. The facts of that case were also similar to the facts of this case except that the delay in that case was shorter. The notification under Section 4(1) was issued on 24.2.1981. The declaration under Section 6 was issued on 19.1.1984. The Amending Act 68 of 1984 came into picture on 24.9.1984. The award was passed on 23.9.1986. On the question of inordinate delay in the passing of the award, the Supreme Court observed as follows:
While we expect an award to be passed by the Collector as early as possible without delaying till the close of the period of two years prescribed by Section 11-A of the Act, we do not see any good reason to set aside a proceeding for acquisition on the ground of delay by applying our own standard of speed in the matter of making awards even where the period occupied is less than two years from the date of publication of declaration under Section 6 of the Act.
Later, the Supreme Court observed as follows:
The very fact that Section 11-A has prescribed the period of two years from the date of the commencement of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984 as the maximum period within which the award can be made suggests that the time taken by the Land Acquisition Officer in this case to make the award cannot be considered to be fatal to the acquisition proceeding.
12. The learned Counsel for the appellants sought to distinguish the Judgment of the Supreme Court. According to learned Counsel they only laid down that it is open to the Land Acquisition Officer to wait till the last day of limitation and he need not pass the award at any earlier point of time. Even assuming for the sake of arguments that this is what is laid down by the Supreme Court, we are of the opinion that since in respect of pending declarations on the date of commencement of the Act, a period of two years has been given by Section 11-A of the Act, it is certainly open to the Land Acquisition Officer to pass the award on any day before the last dale of the said period of two years under the proviso to Section 11-A of the Act.
13. Even assuming that the three Judgments relied on by the appellants viz., in Sree Vengeeswarar Alagarperumal Devasthanam, by its Hereditary Trustee, etc. v. The State of Tamil Nadu by its Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, Madras-9 and Anr. (1984) 2. M.L.J. 427, The Special Deputy Collector (I.A.) v. Ktippu Gounder 98 L.W. 846 (D.B.) and in Singareni Collieries Co. Lid. rep. by its Chairman, Kothagudam, Khammam Dist. v. Saiyanarayana Murthy (1984) 2 An.W.R. 253 applied to the facts of these cases notwithstanding the introduction of Section 11-A to the Land Acquisition Act, the long delay will vitiate the land acquisition proceedings only if the same, as already explained, is without any reason. In this case, it is pointed out in the counter-affidavit that after the issue of notice under Sections 9(3) and 10 of the Land Acquisition -Act, proceedings had to be delayed because of the promulgation of the Tamil Nadu Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1978. The Housing Board for whose benefit, the lands were sought to be acquired had to approach the Government and obtain necessary orders exempting them from the purview of the said Ceiling Act and also from the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961 (Tamil Nadu Act 58 of 1961). After getting the orders of exemption on 15.2.83 the respondents had to set in motion the Award Enquiry proceedings. It is also pointed out that the acquisition related to the, large extent of land of 303.05 acres. Therefore, the question of serving notice as per the mandatory provision of Sections 9(3) and 10 of the Act had also consumed quite a large amount of time. Though we cannot accept the explanation for the long delay in passing the award as satisfactory, we cannot characterise the same as unreasonable or amounting to supine indifference on the part of the respondents. We are therefore unable to bring the facts of this case within the parameters of the three judgments quoted above. However, as we have already pointed, the Amending Act 68 of 1984 has a significant impact on the question and Section 11-A of the Act enables the respondents to pass awards in respect of pending matters within two years from the date of commencement of the Amending Act. It is not disputed that this provision has not been violated. 14. Learned Counsel for the appellants criticized the Judgment of the learned single Judge for having invoked the principle of laches to dismiss the writ petition and in having relied upon the Judgment in Hari Singh and Ors. v. State of U.P. and Ors. . Inasmuch as we are not dismissing the writ appeal on the ground that the appellants had filed the writ petitions after a delay of nearly eleven years after the publication of the notification under Section 4(1) of the Act, it is not necessary to canvass the said findings of the learned single Judge. No doubt, the question of delay in filing the writ petition is material so far as the question of the non-publication of the substance of the notification in the locality is concerned. We have already referred to this aspect of the case and relied on the judgment of the Supreme Court in State of Mysore and Ors. v. V.K. Kangan and Ors. . So far as the ground, based on the delay in passing the award is concerned, the question of delay in filing the writ petition will not arise because the cause of action arose only when the petitioners found the inaction on the part of the respondents to be unreasonable.
15. For all the above reasons, we are unable to grant any relief to the appellants and we hold that the appellants have not made out a case for quashing the notification under Section 4(1) and the declaration under Section 6 of the Act. The writ appeal is dismissed. The interim orders are vacated. There will be no order as to costs.