(1.) All these Appeals are being heard and disposed of by a common Judgment since common questions of law and facts are involved and since all the Advocates appearing in the Appeals have specifically requested for deciding the Appeals by a common Judgment. All the Appeals are filed under Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as "Act") read with the provisions of the Maharashtra Industrial Disputes Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the "MID Act, 1961").
(2.) Initially all these Appeals were decided by the Division Bench (Swatanter Kumar, CJ as he then was and J.P. Devadhar, J.) by Judgment and Order dated 10 th April, 2008 and it was held that the References made under Section 34 (1) of the MID Act, 1961 were barred by time except Appeal Nos. 1776, 1779, 1782, 1784, 1794, 1797, 1818, 1832, 1837, 1840, 1844 and 1847 of 2003 which Appeals were remanded to the Reference Court for deciding the question of limitation of the References and for determining the compensation afresh.
(3.) Aggrieved by these orders, the original claimants had filed Petitions for Special Leave to Appeal in the Supreme Court of India being SLP Nos. 20689 and other connected SLPs, which were numbered as Civil Appeal Nos. 5693 of 2010 to 5828 of 2010 and were allowed by a common Judgment and Order dated 20 th July, 2010 passed by the Supreme Court. The operative order of the Supreme Court Judgment reads thus :