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(1) Interested party who is applying for reference has not accepted the award (award amount is received under protest).
(2) Application must be in writing with a request to make a reference.
(3) It should contain the grounds of objection.
(4) It should be filed within the time prescribed under Section 18(2).

2. If these conditions are not satisfied, Collector is bound to reject the reference application. Even if an application is rejected wrongly, claimants cannot approach the Civil Court by filing an application under Section 18 directly. If the 4 conditions mentioned above are not satisfied, Collector cannot make a reference to the Civil Court. The express requisites in Section 18(1) entrusted an obligation on the part of the Collector to make the reference if the conditions prescribed in the Section are satisfied. He is statutorily bound to make a reference and if he refuses to make a reference, a writ of mandamus can be issued. We are concerned only with condition No. 1 in this judgment regarding acceptance of the award. In this connection Section 31(1) and (2) of the Act are also relevant. They are as follows:

"5. It will thus be clear that the persons interested in the land are !eouiumee!uo!seceive compensation awarded by the Collector under Section 11 under protest and entitled to object to the compensation determined by the Collector. No person who had received the amount otherwise than under protest should be entitled to make the application under Section 18. In other words, the receipt of the amount under protest is a condition precedent to make an application under Section 18 within the limitation prescribed under the proviso to Sub-section (2) of Section 18 together with the grounds on which the objections have been taken".

"It is now settled position in law that the claimants who receive compensation under protest and who make application under Section 18(1), alone are entitled to seek a reference; third parties, who have been impleaded, have no right to claim higher compensation by circumventing the process of reference under Section 18. Under these circumstances, the reference itself is without any jurisdiction and barred by limitation".

5. In State of Punjab v. Smt. Harcharan Kaur, AIR 1975 P & H 66 (FB), a Full Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dealt with the situation where the Collector made the award on 14th March, 1956, payment was made to the claimant on 15th March, 1956 which was accepted without protest. On 24th April, 1956, the claimant made an application for reference under Section 18 of the Act. Question arose whether the application for reference was maintainable. It was held in paragraph 10 of the judgment that if the person had accepted the payment without protest, the application for reference must be rejected Without going into the merits thereof.

Full Bench after considering the large number of cases held that "An application seeking a reference under Section I 8 of the Act is not maintainable, unless the applicant proves that he had received the payment under protest. It would therefore, follow that if the compensation was received without protest, application seeking a reference under Section 18 will not be maintainable". (Paragraph 25 at page 969 mentioned);
After considering the first two provisions of Section 31(2) it was held by the Full Bench as follows:--