IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.3436 of 2011 Date of decision: 25.02.2011 Ram Kanwar …..Petitioner versus Land Acquisition Collector and another ……Respondents CORAM: Hon’ble Mr.Justice Jasbir Singh Hon’ble Mr.Justice Rakesh Kumar Garg Present: Ms.Promila Nain, Advocate for the petitioner Jasbir Singh, J. (Oral) Petitioner’s land was acquired by issuing a notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (in short, the Act) on 17.11.2005. Thereafter, an award was passed as per law. However, when the compensation was not paid, he came to this Court by filing CWP No.1703 of 2008, which was disposed of on 7.1.2009. Relevant portion of the order reads thus:- Civil Writ Petition No.3436 of 2011 “In view of admitted fact that for the land of the petitioners which has been acquired by the respondents, the petitioners have not been paid compensation as awarded and someone else has been paid the compensation, the State cannot deny payment of compensation to the petitioners on the ground that payment will be made only after recovery is made from the person to whom the payment was made by mistake. The petitioners cannot be made to suffer for the mistake of the respondents. Accordingly, this petition is disposed of with a direction that the amount in question be paid to the petitioners in accordance with law within three months from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. Learned counsel for the petitioners refers to order of this Court in an identical matter being Annexure P4 and states that the petitioners therein were later on awarded interest. If that is so, the respondents may check up the same and consider the claim of the petitioners for parity in the matter of interest.” It is grievance of the petitioners that thereafter compensation amount was paid to the petitioners, however, the interest amount, which was paid to the other similarly situated land owners, was not granted to him, despite directions given by this Court in that regard, vide order mentioned above. Perusal of the documents on record, especially letters dated 18.6.2009 (P2) and 25.6.2009(P3), indicates that the authorities started a process of assessing payment of the amount of interest to the petitioners, however, nothing conclusive has been done in that regard. Document 2 Civil Writ Petition No.3436 of 2011 Annexure P4 also indicates that vide letter dated 2.2.2010, the Land Acquisition Collector has asked the Department of Urban Estates Haryana to make arrangement for payment of the amount of interest to the petitioner. Under these circumstances, we dispose of this writ petition with a direction to respondent No.1 to decide claim of the petitioner for the payment of interest in terms of an order passed by a Division Bench of this Court on 7.1.2009 in CWP No.1703 of 2008. Needful shall be done within two months from the receipt of a copy of this order. If any amount is found due to the petitioner, the same shall be paid to him forthwith. (Jasbir Singh) Judge 25.02.2011 (Rakesh Kumar Garg) gk Judge 3