IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 8208 of 1990 Date of decision:29th August, 2011 Sohan Singh .......Petitioner Versus The Union of India and another ........Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASBIR SINGH HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH Present: None for the petitioner. Mr. Jagjit Singh, Advocate for Mr. C.M.Sharma, Advocate for Union of India. Mr. Kamal Sehgal, Addl.A.G.Haryana. 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes/No 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?Yes/No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes/No Jasbir Singh, J.(Oral) Petitioner has filed this writ petition with a prayer that direction be issued to the respondents to appoint an Arbitrator to look into his prayer for grant of benefit of solatium and interest as per the provisions of the amended Land Acquisition Act. It is apparent from the record that award qua land of the petitioner was pronounced by an Arbitrator on 31.03.1983. The petitioner filed an application before the Additional District Judge at Bathinda, claiming benefit of additional solatium and interest as per Civil Writ Petition No. 8208 of 1990 the provisions of the amended Land Acquisition Act. That application was dismissed vide order dated 17.10.1987 (P-1) by the Additional District Judge, Bathinda. Despite pendency of this writ petition for decades, no reply has been filed. Attempt has been made to defeat the right of the petitioner simply by stating that he is not entitled to the benefit of enhanced solatium and interest as per the amended Land Acquisition Act. Therefore, we are not inclined to accept above argument. Under the circumstances, we direct the respondents to appoint an Arbitrator to look into grievance of the petitioner as raised before the Additional District Judge at Bathinda. The needful be done within a period of six weeks from today. The Arbitrator so appointed shall decide the matter within four months from the date of appointment after notice to the petitioner. Registry is directed to send a copy of this order to the petitioner forthwith. [JASBIR SINGH] JUDGE [AUGUSTINE GEORGE MASIH] JUDGE 29th August, 2011 Shivani Kaushik 2