RFA No. 284 of 1990 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH RFA No. 284 of 1990 Date of Decision: 29.7.2009 Sham Sarup and another ....Appellants. Versus State of Haryana and others ...Respondents. CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY KUMAR MITTAL. PRESENT: Mr. S.K. Bansal, Advocate for the appellants. Mr. Ashish Sharma, DAG, Haryana for the respondents. AJAY KUMAR MITTAL, J. The landowners have approached this Court by way of instant regular first appeal for enhancement of the amount of compensation awarded by the reference court vide judgment dated 15.6.1989. Put shortly, the facts of the case are that the appellants were owners in possession of the land measuring 5 kanals 12 marlas situated in village Garhi Brahmanan, Tehsil and District Sonepat. Respondent-State of Haryana vide notifications issued under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short “the Act”) had acquired 15 marlas of land out of killa Nos. 40/15/1 and 40/14/2 situated within the revenue estate of village Garhi Brahmanan, Tehsil and District Sonepat, for the public purpose. The notification under Section 4 of the Act was issued on 1.12.1971 which was published on RFA No. 284 of 1990 -2- 21.12.1971. The Land Acquisition Collector vide award dated 24.2.1982 awarded compensation at the rate of Rs.10,800/- per acre. Feeling aggrieved, the claimants sought reference under Section 18 of the Act. Notice of the reference was issued to the respondents who contested the same and pleaded that the award of the Land Acquisition Collector was valid and had been passed after taking into consideration all the factors. It was submitted that the acquired land was of inferior quality. They prayed for dismissal of the reference. From the pleadings of the parties, the reference court framed the following issues:- “1. What was the market value of the acquired land at the time of notification? OPP 2. Whether the petitioners were entitled to enhanced compensation. If so at what rate and to what amount? OPP 3. Relief.” On appreciation of the evidence led by the parties, the reference court vide award dated 15.6.1989 decided all the issues in favour of the claimants and enhanced the amount of compensation. The reference court held the claimants entitled to the amount of compensation at the rate of 15,000/- per acre. Besides the aforesaid compensation, the landowners-claimants were held entitled to solatium at the rate of 15% and interest at the rate of 6% per annum from the date of award till the payment of excess amount. Being dissatisfied, the claimants have filed the instant appeal for enhancement of quantum of the compensation in this Court and also for the award of statutory RFA No. 284 of 1990 -3- benefits in accordance with the amended provisions of the Act. Learned counsel for the appellants submitted that the amount of compensation awarded by the reference court is inadequate and the reference court has not examined the evidence in its right perspective. According to the learned counsel, the claimant/landowners are entitled to more compensation though they are limiting their claim to Rs.25/- per square yard over and above the amount awarded by the reference court. Learned counsel next submitted that the landowners are entitled to statutory benefits under the provisions of Sections 23 (1- A), 23 (2) and 28 as amended by Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984 (in short the “amended Act”). Learned counsel relied upon Union of India and another v. Raghubir Singh (dead) by LRs etc., (1989 (2) SCC 754 and K.S. Paripoornan (II) v. State of Kerala and others, (1995) 1 SCC 367 in support of his submissions. On the other hand, according to the learned State counsel, the market value assessed by the reference court being adequate did not call for any interference by this Court in the present appeal. Learned State counsel opposed the prayer of the learned counsel for the appellants and by placing reliance upon Union of India and others v. Filip Tiago De Gama of Vedem Vasco De Gama, AIR 1990 SC 981 and K.S. Paripoornan v. State of Kerala and others, (1994) 5 SCC 593 submitted that the benefit of Section 23 (1-A) of the amended Act cannot be granted to the landowners as the award passed by the Land Acquisition Collector was earlier to 30.4.1982 when the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 1982 (in short “the Bill”) was introduced. He, however, could not raise any meaningful argument in respect of RFA No. 284 of 1990 -4- other statutory benefits under Sections 23 (2) and 28 of the amended Act. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have perused the record with their assistance. The issues that arise for consideration in this appeal are categorized as under:- (i) Whether the market value of the acquired land assessed at Rs.15,000/- per acre by the reference court is adequate or the same requires to be enhanced? (ii) Whether the claimants are entitled to benefit of provisions of Section 23 (1-A) of the amended Act especially when the Land Acquisition Collector had recorded his award on 24.3.1982? (iii) Whether the benefit of provisions of Section 23 (2) of the amended Act is admissible to the landowner/ appellants in the facts and circumstances of the case? (iv) Whether the interest under Section 28 of the amended Act is payable by the Collector on the excess compensation determined by the Court in terms of amended provisions of the Act? The Collector had determined the market value at Rs.10,800/- per acre vide his award dated 24.2.1982 which was enhanced to Rs.15,000/- per acre by the reference court as has been noticed earlier. The State had produced three sale instances Ex.R1 to RFA No. 284 of 1990 -5- Ex.R3. Ex.R1 related to sale transaction dated 2.8.1971 vide which land had been sold at the rate of Rs.10,800/- per acre whereas Ex.R2 and Ex.R3 were instances of 1973 and not considered being much after the date of notification under Section 4 of the Act in the present case. The claimants had not produced any sale deed depicting the market value of the land under acquisition. However, the landowners had produced judgment Ex.A1 which related to acquisition of land where notification under Section 4 of the Act was issued on 12.6.1979, whereas the date of publication of the notification in the present case is 21.12.1971. The reference court did not place reliance on Ex.A1 and keeping in view the existence of abadi near the acquired land held that it had potentiality and assessed the compensation at the rate of Rs.15,000/- per acre. In the facts and circumstances, the quantum of compensation as determined by the reference court cannot be faulted as no evidence has been shown which had been ignored by the reference court while determining the quantum of compensation. The answer to the second issue is deducible from the pronouncement of the Apex Court in Filip Tiago De Gama's case (supra), wherein it has been laid down as under:- “20. Entitlement of additional amount provided under S. 23 (1-A) depends upon pendency of acquisition proceedings as on 30 April, 1982 or commencement of acquisition proceedings after that date. S. 30, sub sec. (1)(a) provides that additional amount provided under S. 23 (1-A) shall be applicable to acquisition proceedings pending before the Collector as on 30 RFA No. 284 of 1990 -6- April, 1982 in which he has not made the award before that date. If the Collector has made the award before that date then, that additional amount cannot be awarded, S. 30 sub-sec. (1)(b) provides that S. 23 (1-A) shall be applicable to every acquisition proceedings commenced after 30 April, 1982 irrespective of the fact whether the Collector has made an award or not before 24 September, 1984. The final point to note is that S. 30 sub-sec. (1) does not refer to Court award and the Court award is used only in S. 30, sub-sec. (2).” The Constitution Bench judgment of the Apex Court in K.S.Paripoornan's case (supra) affirmed the aforesaid view and observed as under:- “Merely because sub-section (1) of Section 30 only refers to award made by the Collector while sub- section (2) of Section 30 also refers to an award made by the Court as well as the order passed by the High Court or the Supreme Court in appeal against such award does not mean that Section 23 (1-A) was intended to have application to all proceedings which were pending before the civil Court on the date of the commencement of the amending Act. The difference in the phraseology in sub-sections (1) and (2) of Section 30 only indicates the limited nature of the retrospectivity that has been given to provisions RFA No. 284 of 1990 -7- contained in Section 23 (1-A) under Section 30 (1) as compared to that given to the provisions of Sections 23 (2) and 28 under Section 30 (2). The limited scope of the retrospectivity that has been conferred in respect of Section 23 (1-A) under sub-section (1) of Section 30 does not lend support to the contention that the scope of such retrospectivity should be enlarged by reading such further retrospectivity into the provisions of Section 23 (1-A). For the reasons aforementioned we are of the view that in relation to proceedings which were initiated prior to the date of the commencement of the amending Act Section 23 (1-A) would be applicable only to those cases which fall within the ambit of clauses (a) and (b) of sub- section (1) of Section 30 of the amending Act. In this context it is also necessary to bear in mind the rule of statutory construction that even where a statute is clearly intended to be to some extent retrospective, it is not to be construed as having a greater retrospective effect than its language renders necessary. (See Halsbury's Laws of England, 4th Edn., Vol. 44, para 924) There is, therefore, no scope for extending the ambit of retrospective operation of sub-section (1-A) of Section 23 beyond the limits specified in Section 30 (1) of the amending Act so as to apply it to all proceedings initiated prior RFA No. 284 of 1990 -8- to the date of coming into force of the amending Act which were pending before the civil Court on reference under Section 18 of the principal Act irrespective of the date on which the award was made by the Collector. For the reasons aforementioned we are unable to subscribe to the view taken in Zora Singh that sub-section (1-A) of Section 23 would apply to all proceedings pending in the reference Court on the date of commencement of the amending Act irrespective of the date on which award was made by the Collector. In our opinion, the provisions of Section 23 (1-A) of the principal Act and Section 30 (1) of the amending Act have been correctly construed in Filip Tiago to mean that the obligation to pay additional amount in respect of proceedings initiated before the date of commencement of the amending Act is confined to the matters covered by clauses (a) and (b) of sub- section (1) of Section 30 of the amending Act and we endorse the said view.” According to the authoritative pronouncements of the Apex Court, the landowners are not entitled to benefit of provisions of Section 23 (1-A) of the amended Act where the award by the Land Acquisition Collector had been made prior to 30th April, 1982, i.e. the date of introduction of the Bill in Parliament. The notification under Section 4 of the Act in the present case was issued on 1.12.1971 and published on RFA No. 284 of 1990 -9- 21.12.1971 and award of the Land Acquisition Collector was announced on 24.2.1982, i.e. the date before the introduction of the bill on 30.4.1982 and, therefore, the land owners have rightly been held not entitled to the benefit of Section 23 (1-A) of the amended Act. The benefit regarding Sections 23 (2) and 28 of the amended Act can be taken up together as the same is to be answered in the light of Section 30 (2) of the amendment Act of 1984. By the said amendment, in sub-section (2) of Section 23, solatium was increased and the rate of interest prescribed in Section 28 was enhanced. Section 30 (2) of the amending Act contains the following transitional provisions:- “30. Transitional provisions: (1) XX XX XX (2) The provisions of sub-sec. (2) of S.23 of the principal Act, as Amended by Cl. (b) of S. 15 and S. 18 of this Act respectively, shall apply, and shall be deemed to have applied, also to, and in relation to, any award made by the Collector or Court or to any order passed by the High Court or Supreme Court in appeal against any such award under the provisions of the principal Act after the 30th day of April, 1982 (the date of introduction of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, 1982, in the House of the People) and before the commencement of this Act.” The answer to the aforesaid issue stands concluded by the judgment of the Apex Court in K.S. Paripoornan (II)'s case (supra), RFA No. 284 of 1990 -10- wherein while applying the Constitution Bench judgment in Raghubir Singh's case (supra), it has been laid down that where civil court makes an award between 30.4.1982 and 24.9.1984, or thereafter Section 30 (2) is applicable and, therefore, benefit of amended Section 23 (2) and Section 28 of the Act is available to the claimant-landowners. The observations in paras 4 and 5, read as under:- “4. This Court thereby clearly held that even in the pending reference made before 30.4.1982, if the civil court makes an award between 30.4.1982 and 24.9.1984, Section 30 (2) gets attracted and thereby the enhanced solatium was available to the claimants. Since Section 30 (2) deals with both the amendments to Section 23 (2) and Section 28 of the Principal Act by Section 15 (b) and Section 18, respectively, of the Amendment Act by parity of the reasoning the same ratio applies to the awards made by the civil court between those dates. The conflict of decisions as to whether Section 23 (2) as amended by Section 15 (b) of the Amendment Act through Section 30 (2) of the transitory provisions would be applicable to the pending appeals in the High Court and the Supreme Court was resolved in Raghubir Singh case by the Constitution Bench holding that the award of the Collector or the court made between 13.4.1982 and 24.9.1984 would alone get attracted to Section 30 (2) of the transitory RFA No. 284 of 1990 -11- provision. The restricted interpretation should not be understood to mean that Section 23 (2) would not apply to the award of the civil court pending at the time when the Act came into force or thereafter. In this case, admittedly the award of the civil court was made after the Act had come into force, namely, 28.2.1985. 5. Therefore, if the sum which, in the opinion of the court, the Collector ought to have awarded as compensation, is in excess of the sum which the Collector did award as compensation, the court shall direct the Collector to pay interest on such excess at the rate of 9% per annum from the date on which the Collector took possession of the land to the date of payment of such excess into the court. By operation of the proviso, if such excess or any part thereof is paid into the court after the date of expiry of a period of one year from the date on which possession is taken, interest at the rate of 15% per annum shall be payable from the date of expiry of the said period of one year on the amount of such excess or part thereof which has not been paid into the court before the date of such expiry. Accordingly, the appellant is entitled to the enhanced interest @ 9% from the date of taking possession, namely, 15.1.1981 and 11.3.1981 respectively for one year and thereafter @ RFA No. 284 of 1990 -12- 15% till the date of the deposit made by the Collector. Admittedly, the deposit of the enhanced compensation was made on 20.10.1986 and 3.12.1986. Therefore, the interest shall be calculated at the enhanced rates for the aforesaid period.” In view of the above, the benefit of amended Sections 23 (2) and 28 of the Act is allowed to the appellants and in so far as benefit under Section 23 (1-A) of the Act is concerned, the same is not available to the landowners. With this modification, the appeal stands disposed of. July 29, 2009 (AJAY KUMAR MITTAL) gbs JUDGE