A M CHENGALVAROYA CHETTY Vs. COLLECTOR OF MADRAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE substantial question that arises for consideration in this civil revision petition relates to its maintainability. The order sought to be revised is one that rejected a reference made to the court under Ss. 18 and 31 of the Land Acquisition act, on the ground that the amount of compensation had already been paid out to one of the claimants. If an appeal were to lie against such an order, the present civil revision petition, which is filed under S. 115 C. P. C. will be incompetent.

(2.) BEFORE proceeding further with the consideration of the question, we shall set out briefly the facts that have given rise to it.

(3.) TWO items of land, R. S. Nos. 1403 and 1404/2, lying in Vanniya Teynampet in malapore area, were acquired by the Government for providing quarters for the staff of the Posts and Telegraphs Department. The notification under S. 4 (1) of the land Acquisition Act is dated 18-4-1956. The owner of the property was one doraiswami Mudaliar, who is the second respondent to this petition. He applied for payment out of the entire compensation for the two survey numbers. It appears however that even earlier, in execution of a mortgage decree obtained against him, the petitioner, Chengalavaraya Chetti, had purchased one of the two above mentioned items, namely, R. S. No. 1403. This fact was not known to the Land acquisition Officer. The compensation for both the items of land--we are concerned in this case only with one of them, namely, R. S. 1403--was fixed at Rs. 1,71,879-48. The amount was directed to be distributed between the second respondent and certain persons who had mortgage claims over the property. Doraiswami Mudaliar contested the adequacy of the compensation, and at his instance a reference under S. 18 was made to the City Civil Court, Madras which duly registered the case as L. A. C. 60 of 1958. Shortly thereafter, Chengalvaraya chetti, the petitioner, obtained information about the land acquisition proceedings and he applied to the Collector to adjudicate his right to the compensation amount, relative to R. S. 1403. In due course, the Collector made a reference to the City Civil Court in L. A. C No. 153 of 1958 concerning the title of the petitioner to obtain the compensation in preference to Doraiswami Mudaliar. While making the reference, the Collector invited the attention of the City Civil Court to the earlier reference made by him--L. A. C. No. 60 of 1958--and suggested to the court to dispose of both of them together, It is a matter for regret that the court ignored this advice. Each one of the references was dealt with separately; doraiswami Mudaliar, who alone could have known the connection between the two, did not appear to have informed the court about the desirability of both the cases being disposed of together. The result was that L. A. C. 60 of 1958 was disposed of first. This enabled Doraiswami Mudaliar to obtain payment of the entire compensation amount.