Sri Ch.Narasimha Rao & Ors vs Land Acquisition Officer Eluru & Ors

3. The issue involved in this appeal is whether Reference Applications filed by the appellants under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act”), was beyond statutory period. For the purpose of ascertaining the said fact, it would be necessary to record some of the relevant facts pertaining to the acquisition proceedings.

7. Once again, Writ Petition No.32806 of 1998 challenging the validity of notification under Section 6 had been filed in November, 1998 on the ground that the said notification was not issued within the time limit prescribed under the Act. Ultimately, the said petition had been dismissed on 27th August, 1999, but being aggrieved by the order of dismissal, Writ Appeal No.1337 of 1999 had been filed by appellants before the Division Bench of Andhra Pradesh High Court. The said appeal had been allowed by the High Court on 23rd July, 2001 and thereby the acquisition proceedings had come to an end. The review application filed against the judgment delivered by the Division Bench had also been rejected by the High Court.

8. In the aforestated circumstances, a Special Leave Petition challenging the abovestated judgment had been filed by Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Limited (APIIC), for whose benefit the land was sought to be acquired for establishment of Auto Nagar. Leave was granted in the said Special Leave Petition, which was recorded as Civil Appeal Nos.304-305 of 2005. An interim order was also passed in the said appeals for maintaining status-quo with regard to possession as it existed on 10th January, 2005. During the pendency of the aforestated appeals before this Court, the Land Acquisition Officer had filed a petition under Section 31(2) of the Act before the District Court. The said proceedings had been rejected by the District Judge on the ground that the acquisition proceedings were pending before the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court had given a direction for maintaining status-quo.

11. The aforestated proceedings, whereby the reference applications had been rejected by the Land Acquisition Officer, had been challenged before the High Court of Andhra Pradesh on 4th August, 2012 by filing Writ Petition No.24806 of 2012. The said writ petition had been rejected by the learned Single Judge of the High Court on 13th August, 2012 on the ground that the reference applications under Section 18(1) of the Act had not been filed within the time prescribed under the said section. The judgment delivered by the learned Single Judge on 13th August, 2012 had been challenged by the present appellants/land owners by filing Writ Appeal No.1274 of 2012, which was also dismissed on the same ground on 10th October, 2012.

18. Upon hearing the learned counsel and looking at the peculiar facts of the case, in our opinion, this appeal deserves to be allowed.

20. For the aforestated reasons, we allow the appeal and set aside the judgment delivered by the High Court and we direct that without going into the issue of delay or limitation, the applications filed by the appellants under Section 18(1) of the Act shall be entertained in accordance with law.

21. The appeal stands disposed of as allowed with no order as to costs.