KALIYANCHAND Vs. KANCHANBAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition U/A 227 of the Constitution by one of the parties to a dispute regarding the apportionment of compensation granted by the Collector in a land acquistion case. The ground is that the Court to which an application for reference by the opposite party was forwarded by the Collector should have held that the application to the Collector being time barred under Section 18(2) of the Land Acquisition Act, he was not competent to etertain the reference. Actually, it rejected the Petitioner's prayer to this effect, holding that once the reference had been made by the Collector it was not competent to consider its propriety or validity, but should straightway proceed to determine, after noticing the parties, the objection raised in the application.

(2.) WITHOUT going into the merits of the contentions of the parties for and against "limitation" of the opposite party's application under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act before the Collector, we have here to decide whether once the reference has been received from the Collector, the Court is competent to see whether or not the Collector should have dismissed the application as time barred under Section 18 (2) of the Act.

(3.) SINCE there has been some confusion in this regard, it is to be noted that the present petition is against the order of the District Judge refusing to go behind the reference, and not against the order of the Collector making it. No doubt, an application by a party aggrieved by an order of the Court dealing with a reference under the Land Acquisition Act should be one of revision under Section 115 Code of Civil Procedure and not one under Article 227 of the Constitution. If this were the only difficulty, the Petitioner would not be seriously inconvenienced; this petition having been filed within 45 days from the date of its order. He can pray that the petition itself might be treated as one under Section 115 Code of Civil Procedure Code; this petition being dismissed, he might file another application under that section, and request the Court to condone the delay in view of his having proceeded under Article 227. One or the other of these courses has been adopted by similar Petitioners in other cases.