SUKHDEV SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WHETHER the landowner is entitled to pay additional court fee at any time after the disposal of his appeal and consequently claim enhanced compensation is the sole question that falls for consideration here.

(2.) APPLICANT's Letters Patent Appeal was allowed by a Division Bench of this Court on January 30, 1989 along with a large number of appeals holding the applicant and other landowners entitled to a higher rate of compensation than the one allowed by the learned Single Judge. Through an application dated November 26, 1990 apparently filed in January, 1992, the applicant has prayed that he be allowed to pay additional court fee so a to entitle him to get the enhanced compensation as awarded by the Division Bench. The only ground alleged in the application is that at the time of hearing in the appeal, an oral request was made on behalf of the applicant that he be permitted to make good the deficiency in court fee during such time as may be fixed by the Court. From a reading of the order passed by the Division Bench dated January 30, 1989, it cannot be made out that such a request was made on behalf of the applicant. The order is quite silent in this behalf.

(3.) IN order to seek the relief claimed in the application in hand, learned counsel for the applicant relied upon the orders of Division Bench in Civil Misc. 211 (LPA) of 1990 in LPA 1526 of 1987; and Civil Misc. 243 of 1990 in LPA 1055 of 1987, besides relying upon a decision of the Supreme Court in Nand Ram v. The State of Haryana 1988 P. L. J. 505. According to the learned counsel for the applicant the orders in the aforesaid two Civil Misc. applications were passed in the connected appeals and the landowners were allowed to pay additional court fee so as to enable them to take the benefit of the enhanced amount of compensation. Civil Misc. 211 (LPA) of 1990 was filed on April 22, 1989 after the disposal of the Letters Patent Appeal on January 30, 1989. Having regard to the observations of the apex Court in Nand Ram's case the landowners were allowed two months time to make up the deficiency in court fee, by order dated September 6, 1990. In Civil Misc. 243 (LPA) of 1990, the landowners were allowed to make up the deficiency in court fee by order dated November 1, 1990, in view of the order passed in Civil Misc. 211 (LPA) of 1990. Civil Misc. 243 (LPA) of 1990 was apparently filed in the month of January 1990.