(1.) An award purporting to be a consent award was made on 21st November 2007. The land of the appellant -petitioner was acquired under the provisions of the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Act, 1966 (for short 'the said Act of 1966'). The consent award fixes the compensation amount payable to the appellant as Rs.31,00,000/- per acre. The consent award records that if the appellant is not agreeable, he can seek the regular award. Interestingly, on 20th February 2008, at the instance of the appellant, there was a reference made under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short 'the said Act of 1894') for enhancement of compensation in which, a contention has been raised that in the case of similarly situated lands, larger amount of compensation has been awarded. The matter does not rest here. On 3rd March 2010, the appellant unconditionally entered into an agreement under sub-section (2) of Section 29 of the said Act of 1966 with the State Government by which, he agreed to take compensation @ Rs.31,00,000/- per acre and therefore, it is recorded in the agreement that the appellant has received an amount of Rs.1,24,00,000/-. We may note here that in the application filed by the appellant under Section 18 of the said Act of 1894, he claimed compensation @ Rs.40,00,000/- per acre.
(2.) It is pertinent to note certain Clauses in the agreement which is a statutory agreement under sub-section (2) of Section 29 of the said Act of 1966 which was voluntarily entered into by the appellant. Clauses 3, 4 and 7 of the said agreement read thus:
(3.) Thus, the appellant who is described as the owner agreed that he is not entitled to anything over and above the amount of Rs.1,24,00,000/- calculated @ Rs.31,00,000/- per acre by way of compensation for the acquired land. There is a specific clause that the payment of compensation will be towards the full and final settlement of the claim and the appellant will not be entitled to seek enhancement by taking recourse to Section 18 of the said Act of 1894. At no stage, the appellant came out with a case that the agreement is executed in duress or under coercion. In fact, he voluntarily accepted the compensation amount of Rs.1,24,00,000/-.