SINGARENI COLLIERIES COMPANY LIMITED Vs. P MOGILAIAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) : Heard. Learned Judge has quashed the proceedings for the acquisition of land of the writ petitioner- respondents on the ground that in a proceeding in which preliminary notification was issued under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act on25-9-1975 followed by the publication of the declaration under Section 6 of the Acton 18-10-1975, the award was made after in or dinate delay onlyon25-6-1986. The Court followed the decision of the Supreme Court in Ambalal v. Ahmedabad Municipal Corpn. (1) AIR 1968 SC 1223 for holding that the delay of 11 years from the date of notification under Section 4(1) of the Act to the date of award was most unreasonable. The Court however has taken the above view, it appears, uninformed of the provision in Section 11-A of the Act which is introduced by Act 68 of 1984 withe ftect from24-9-1984. This Section reads as follows: "11-APeriod within which an awardshall be made:- (1) The Collector shall make an award under Section 11 within a period of two years from the date of publication of declaration and if no award is made within that period, the entire proceedings for the acquisition of the land shall lapse; Provided that in a case where the said declaration has been published before the commencement of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1884, the award shall be made within a period of two years from such commencement. Explanation:- In computing the period of two years referred to in this section, the period during which any action or proceeding to be taken in pursuance of the said declaration is stayed by an order of a Court shall be excluded.'' The outer limit thus of delay, if any, upon which the proceeding may be held to be unreasonably delayed is fixed for the proceedings before the amendment Act, within a period of two years from the date of the commencement of the Amendment Act, i.e., Section 11-A of the Land Acquisition Act, i.e., 24-9-1984. In the instant case, award has been made on 25-6-1986, i.e., within two years of the commence ment of the a mendment aforementioned. We do not propose to go any further with our discussion on the subject and discuss whether in view of the above a mendment in law, the Judgmentof this Court in the case of Singareni Collieries v. V.S. Murthy (2) 1984 (1) ALT 108 is a good law or not, but we intend to refer to ajudgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Yusuf bhai Noormohmed Nendoliya v. State of Gujarat (3) AIR 1991 SC 2193 which supports the view which we have taken and also explains that irrespective of possession whether taken under Section 17 of the Actor under Section 16 thereof, the effect of the amendment is the same that if award is not made within two years in cases in which preliminary notification and declaration under Section 6 of the Act are published before the commencement of the amendment act, i.e., Section 11-A, of such commencement, the proceeding will lapse. Otherwise, it will be a valid proceeding and shall be continued to finalise the acquisition by payment of compensation to the owner of the property in accordance with law. The period of two years of the declaration under Section 6 of the Act which, however, is applicable to the cases of notification under Section 4(1) and publication of the declaration under Section 6 of the Act after the commencement of Section 11-A, however, in the case of acquisition of land by invoking emergency clause under Section 17 of the Act may not be applicable as held by the Supreme Court in Satendra Prasad v. State of U.P. (4) AIR 1993 SC 2517, a situation with which we are not concemed in the instant case. Since learned Judge has allowed writ petition and quashed the acquisition proceeding only on the ground of inordinate delay and has not considered the caseof the petitioner-respondents in any other aspect, we do not propose to finally dispose of the writ petition.

(2.) IN the result, the impugned Judgment in Writ Petition No.9022 of 1986 is set aside and the case is remitted for hearing afresh in accordance with law on grounds other than the ground of inordinate delay. The appeal is allowed to the extent indicated above.