STATE Vs. RAMAKRISHNA PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the State against a decision of the learned Additional District Judge of Trivandrum on a Land Acquisition Reference by which the learned Judge enhanced the value awarded by the Land Acquisition Authorities for a plot of 23 cents of land which belonged to the respondent, and which was compulsorily acquired by the State for the purpose of improving the aerodrome at the Sankumukhom beach, Trivandrum. The main point raised by the learned Government Pleader was that inasmuch as the land owner, that is, the respondent had not made any claim as enjoined by S.9(2) of the Land Acquisition Act (Act XI of 1089, Travancore) pursuant to the notice issued to him thereunder, it was not competent for the learned Judge to enhance the value awarded by the Land Acquisition authorities. This objection was raised before the learned Judge only at the time the case came up for arguments after the conclusion of the evidence and the learned Judge repelled it on the ground that as it was not raised by the Government Pleader in the written objections filed by him in Court in answer to the claim for enhanced compensation, the respondent got no opportunity to explain his omission to make a claim and that the Court will not, therefore, be justified in refusing the relief which the land owner was entitled to on the merits of his claim. S. 24 (which corresponds to S. 25 of the Land Acquisition Act, I of 1894) contains the rules as to amount of compensation and that Section is in the following terms:-

(2.) Sub-s. 2 makes it clear that in a case where the claimant omitted to put forward his claim under S.9(2) the amount awarded by the Court shall in no case exceed the amount awarded by the Division Peishkar unless the Court finds that there was sufficient reason for the failure. The learned Judge below has not chosen to apply his mind to the question whether there was sufficient reason for the respondents omission to make the necessary claim and would seem to have proceeded on the ground that the Government Pleader was not entitled to raise the objection at that late stage.

(3.) The provisions of the section quoted above are mandatory. It prescribes a penalty for the omission unless it is properly accounted for and on the language of the section it is the party who wants to be exempted from the penal consequences prescribed by it that should move the court to permit him to make the claim for enhanced compensation. The wording of the section would seem to us to admit of no other construction. Decided cases support this view. The Secretary of State for India v. Gobind Lal Bysak (1908) XII Calcutta Weekly Notes 263; The Secretary of State for India in Council v. Bishan Dat (1911) ILR XXXIII Allahabad 377; Narain Dat v. The Superintendent of Dehra Dun (1915) ILR XXXVIII Allahabad 69; Ram Prasad v. The Collector of Alligarh (1917) XI Indian Cases 274. In Birbal v. Collector of Moradabad AIR 1927 Allahabad 183 the Allahabad High Court followed the two earlier decisions of that court mentioned above. Certain other cases go further and hold that the claim in answer to the notice under S.9(2) should be a specific claim, a claim which states in Rupees the value the claimant places upon his property. Orient Bank of India Ltd. v. Secretary of State (1926) ILR VII Lahore 416 and Subbanna v. District Labour Officer (1930) Madras Weekly Notes 373.