1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY BENCH AT AURANGABAD. WRIT PETITION NO.209 OF 2009 1. Trimbak s/o Rambhau Hagare, Age : 50 years, Occu.Agriculture, 2. Babasaheb s/o Raosaheb Jadhav, Age : 55 years, Occu.Agriculture, 3. Dharmaraj s/o Rambhau Hagare, Age : 48 years, Occu.Agriculture, 4. Vishnu s/o Ganpati Jadhav, Age : 45 years, Occu.Agriculture, 5. Changdeo s/o Ganpati Jadhav, Age : 56 years, Occu.Agriculture, 6. Ramkisan s/o Ganpati Jadhav, Age : 50 years, Occu.Agriculture, 7. Gajendra s/o Ganpati Jadhav, Age : 46 years, Occu.Agriculture, 8. Rajendra s/o Rambhau Jadhav, Age : 38 years, Occu.Agriculture, All R/o Loni Ghat, Tq. & Dist. Beed ..PETITIONERS VERSUS 1. The State of Maharashtra Through the Secretary, Revenue & Forest Department, Mantralaya, Mumabai 2 2. The Collector, Beed, District : Beed 3. The Special Land Acquisition Officer, Jayakwadi Project No.3, Ambajogai, Dist. Beed ..RESPONDENTS Mr D.R. Jaybhar, Advocate for the petitioners; Mr N.N. Jadhav, AGP for respondents.; CORAM: P.V. HARDAS AND R.K.DESHPANDE, JJ. DATE : 10TH JULY, 2009 ORAL JUDGMENT: [PER P.V. HARDAS, J.] Rule. Rule returnable forthwith. With the consent of learned Counsel for the parties this petition is heard finally at the stage of admission. 2. This is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India by which the petitioners pray for issuing a writ directing respondent no.3 to refer the applications filed by the petitioners under section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act. 3. It appears that consequent to the declaration of the award the petitioners submitted an application on 7.10.1996 requesting the Special Land Acquisition Officer to make a reference to the Civil Court. It appears that since the court fees were not affixed to the application, the necessary orders were not passed. Subsequently, it appears that the court fees have been 3 affixed and the petitioners have tendered before us copies of the receipts evidencing the payment of the court fee. This Court by its order dated 23.1.2009 had issued notices to the respondents and notice on behalf of respondent no.3 came to be accepted by the learned A.G.P. Further to the aforesaid order, by an order dated 26.3.2009 this Court specifically directed that affidavit in reply be filed within two weeks from the aforesaid date. The Court also made it clear that this petition would be heard finally after two weeks even in the absence of an affidavit in reply. Today also no affidavit in reply has been filed. Thus, nearly about 3-1/2 months have elapsed since the passing of the order of this Court directing respondents to file an affidavit in reply. 4. It is extremely disturbing to note that from 1996 applications filed by the petitioners under section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act have remained pending with the respondent no.3 – Special Land Acquisition Officer. For reasons which are not apparent to us the Special Land Acquisition Officer has delayed making a reference of the applications to the Civil Court. It also appears that no orders have been passed, at least none have been communicated to the petitioners stating therein that the reference has been rejected. The interests of the State Exchequer are likely to be seriously jeopardized on account of such gross delay as the amount of interest is likely to pile up. Since the applications have not been decided by the Special Land Acquisition Officer, we allow this petition and direct the Special Land Acquisition Officer to pass 4 orders in accordance with law within a period of two weeks from today and communicate the decision thereof to the petitioners. 5. This petition is accordingly allowed. Rule is made absolute on the terms indicated above with costs of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees Ten Thousand) to be borne by respondent no.3. [ R.K. DESHPANDE, J ] [ P.V. HARDAS, J ] amj/wp209.09 5