Case: Raja Harish Chandra Raj Singh Vs. The Deputy Land Acquisition Officer &amp; Another

2. The appellant Raja Harish Chandra Raj Singh was the proprietor of a village Beljuri in the District of Nainital. It appears that proceedings for compulsory acquisition of land including the said village for a public purpose were commenced by respondent 2, the State of Uttar Pradesh, notifications under Ss. 4 ad 6 of the Act were issued in that behalf, and the provisions of S. 17 were also made applicable. Accordingly, after the notice under S. 9(1) of the Act was published possession of land was taken by the Collector on March 19, 1960. Thereupon, the appellant filed his claim to compensation for the land acquired in accordance with S. 9(2), and proceedings were held by the Deputy Land Acquisition Officer, respondent 1, for determining the amount of compensation. It appears that in these proceedings an award was made, signed and filed in his office by respondent 1 on March 25, 1951. No notice of this award was, however, given to the appellant as required by S. 12(2) and it was only on or about January 13, 1953, that he received information about the making of the said award. The appellant then filed an application on February 24, 1953, under S. 18 requiring that the matter be referred for the determination of the Court, as according to the appellant, the compensation amount determined by respondent 1 was quite inadequate. Respondent 1 took the view that the application thus made by the appellant was beyond time under the proviso to S. 18 and so he rejected it. The appellant then filed a writ petition in the Allahabad High Court on December 21, 1953, in which he claimed appropriate reliefs in respect of the order passed by respondent 1 on his application made under S. 18. This petition was heard by Mehrotra, j., and was allowed. The learned Judge directed respondent 1 to consider the application made by the appellant on the merits and deal with it in accordance with law. He held that in dealing with the said application as filed in time. Against this decision the respondents preferred an appeal to a Division Bench of the said High Court. Moothan, C. J., and Chaturvedi, J., who heard this appeal took the view that the application filed by the appellant under S. 18 of the Act was barred by time, and so they allowed the appeal, set aside the order passed by Mehrotra, J., and dismissed the writ petition filed by the appellant. The appellant then moved for and obtained a certificate from the said High Court and it is with this certificate that he has come to this Court in the present appeal;

Reasoning: It makes it obligatory on the Collector to give immediate notice of his award to such of the persons interested as are not present personally or by their representatives when the award is made. It is common ground that no such notice was given by respondent 1 to the appellant. That briefly is the scheme of the relevant provisions of Part II of the Act which deals with acquisition.There is yet another point which leads to the same conclusion. If the award is treated as an administrative decision taken by the Collector in the matter of the valuation of the property sought to be acquired it is clear that the said decision ultimately affects the rights of the owner of the property and in that sense, like all decisions which affect person, it is essentially fair and just that the said decision should be communicated to the said party. The knowledge of the party affected by such a decision, either actual or constructive, is an essential element which must be satisfied before the decision can be brought into force. Thus considered the making of the award cannot, consist merely in the physical act of writing the award or signing it or even filing it in the office of the Collector : it must involve the communication of the said award to the party concerned either actually or constructively. If the award is pronounced in the presence of the party whose rights are affected by it, it can be said to be made when pronounced. If the date for the pronouncement of the award is communicated to the party and it is accordingly pronounced on the date previously announced the award is said to be communicated to the said party even if the said party is not actually present on the date of its pronouncement. Similarly if without notice of the date of its pronouncement an award is pronounced and a party is not present the award can be said to be made when it is communicated to the party later. The knowledge of the party affected by the award, either actual or constructive, being an essential requirement of fairplay and natural justice the expression "the date of the award" used in the proviso must mean the date when the award is either communicated to the party or is known by him either actually or constructively. In our opinion, therefore, it would be unreasonable to construe the words "from the date of the Collectors award" used in the proviso to S. 18 in a literal or mechanical way.7. In this connection it is material to recall the fact that under S. 12(2) it is obligatory on the Collector to give immediate notice of the award to the persons interested as are not present personally or by their representatives when the award is made. This requirement itself postulates the necessity of the communication of the award to the party concerned . The Legislature recognised that the making of the award under S. 11 followed by its filing under S. 12(1) would not meet the requirements of justice before bringing the award into force. It thought that the communication of the award to the party concerned was also necessary and so by the use of the mandatory words an obligation is placed on the Collector to communicate the award immediately to the person concerned. It is significant that the section requires the Collector to give notice of the award immediately after making it. This provision lends support to the view which we have taken about the construction of the expression "from the date of the Collectors award" in the proviso to S. 18. It is because communication of the order is regarded by the Legislature as necessary that S. 12(2) has imposed an obligation on the Collector and if the relevant clause in the proviso is read in the light of this statutory requirement it tends to show that the literal and mechanical construction of the said clause would be wholly inappropriate. It would indeed be a very curious result that the failure of the Collector to discharge his obligation under S. 12(2) should directly tend to make ineffective the right of the party to make an application under S. 18, and this result could not possibly have been intended by theour opinion this decision is based on a misconstruction of the relevant clause in the proviso to S. 18.In other words the Madras High Court has taken the view that the omission to use the words "from the date of communication" in S. 33-A (2) does not mean that limitation can start to run against a party even before the party either knew or should have known about the said order. In our opinion this conclusion is obviouslydecisions show that where the rights of a person are affected by any order and limitation is prescribed for the enforcement of the remedy by the person aggrieved against the said order by reference to the making of the said order, the making of the order must mean either actual or constructive communication of the said order to the party concerned. Therefore, we are satisfied that the High Court of Allahabad was in error in coming to the conclusion that the application made by the appellant in the present proceedings was barred under the proviso to S. 18 of the Act.