GAURI SHANKER Vs. DISTRICT JUDGE MAHARAJGANJ

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioner with the following reliefs:

(2.) THE facts leading to the filing of present writ petition are that in the year 1983, petitioner's land as well as the lands belonging to other persons were acquired by the State Government for the purposes of construction of the office of Sub -Divisional Officer, Mahrajganj. The Land Acquisition Officer/District Magistrate, Gorakhpur has given an award on 16 -4 -1985 by which the amount pertaining to the said land of petitioner was determined to the extent of Rs. 11,426 -44. It is submitted by petitioner's counsel that petitioner has received a notice on 8 - 5 -1985 pertaining to the aforesaid compensation award and immediately on 9 -5 -1985 he filed his objection as contemplated under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, which was served in the office of Respondent No. 4 on the same day. It is stated that the said objection of the petitioner has not been decided, nor any reference has been made by the Collector. Being aggrieved with the same petitioner filed writ petition numbered as Writ Petition No. 20511 of 1989 before this Court, in which this Court while disposing of the said writ petition has passed the following order, the operative portion thereof reads as follows:

(3.) INSPITE of this order again being communicated to the respondents, it is alleged by the petitioner that since his application under Section 18 of the Act has not been decided, nor any reference has been made in this regard, he therefore filed fresh application on 28 -1 -1998 as stated in the impugned order. By the impugned order dated 18 -3 -1998 the said application dated 28 -1 -1998 has been rejected, though the same was supported by an affidavit along with an application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act. The petitioner has stated that for the first time the information of rejection of his objection dated 9 -5 -1985 was communicated to the petitioner on 3 -12 -1997. Thereafter he was searching out the papers from 4 -12 -1997 to 4 -1 -1998 and when the papers were not traced in the office, he filed an application on 5 -1 -1998, pursuance whereof the file was made available for inspection on 23 -1 -1998. The petitioner has applied for the copy of the said documents on the same day, which were made available to him on 24 -1 -1998. Since 25 -1 -1998 was Sunday and 26 -1 -1998 was a holiday on account of Republic Day, he came on 27 -1 -1998 and filed a reference on 28 -1 -1998. The application filed by the petitioner has been rejected by the District Judge videits order dated 18 -3 -1998 relying upon the decision in the case of Kakabaiv. Land Acquisition Officer/District Collector,reported in A.I.R. 1956 Punjab 231, which says that where the applicant knew it that if the Collector is not sending the reference to the District Court as contemplated under Section 18 of the Act, he should have presented the petition before this Court or before Hon'ble High Court but the same has not been done by the petitioner, nor he has taken any steps before the reference becomes barred by time. In this view of the matter, since now the matter has been more than 13 years old, the same cannot now be accepted and reference be made. The petitioner has given in detail with meticulous accuracy of the dates and a perusal thereof makes it clear that the petitioner cannot be said to be slept over in pursuing his application or reference and in fact it is admitted by the respondents that against the award dated 8 -5 -1985, petitioner's objection was filed on 9 -5 -1985. In this view of the matter, in cannot be said that the application under Section 18 of the Act was filed beyond time. The petitioner has filed two writ petitions, as stated above, first in the year 1989 and second in the year 1995 with the prayer that his application under Section 18 of the Act may be disposed of. However, in the present impugned order it has been stated that the objection of the petitioner has been disposed of much earlier than the filing of the first writ petition before this Court. The order dated 6 - 4 -1988 rejecting the objection filed by the petitioner on 9 -5 - 1985 has been annexed as Annexure -2 to the writ petition, a perusal whereof would clearly demonstrates that the same cannot be said to be an order on merits as the respondents have refused to refere the matter the District Judge concerned while dealing with the objection raised by the petitioner. In this view of the matter, in my opinion, the petitioner has made out a case for getting his objection under Section 18 of the Act decided on merits by the respondent/Collector, which has not been done inspite of the long history stated herein before.