STATE OF PUNJAB Vs. GURDIAL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE significant question visualised in the order of reference to this Full Bench may be more precisely formulated in the following terms:-

(2.) AT the very outset I would wish to record that for the detailed reasons stated hereinafter, the answer to the aforesaid question has to be rendered in the negative, because of the massive weight of precedent, the clear and the specific provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, end upon larger principle.

(3.) IT is plain that the issue aforesaid is purely legal and the peculiar circumstances of this case would pale into relative insignificance. Since I propose first to focus attention primarily on the legal issue, it becomes unnecessary to advert to the facts in any great detail, Suffice it to mention that in the judgment under appeal, the learned single Judge had found that the special notice under Section 9 (3) of the Act (hereinafter called the Act) had been served upon a cosharer and not personally upon the respondent landowner Lt. Col. Gurdial Singh and on that ground he allowed an opportunity to him to prefer a reference under Section 18 of the Act by specifically condoning the delay and allowing a further period of three months for doing so. This Letters Patent Appeal moved by the State of Punjab originally. came up before my learned brother D. S. Tewatia, J. and myself. At that, stage the judgment of the learned single Judge (reported in 1979 Pun LJ 18) was inter alia sought to be sustained on behalf of the respondent on the ground that the failure to specifically serve him with a notice under Section 9 (3) would entail the vitiation of the whole of the Award and the proceedings following thereafter. Consequently, it was claimed that a fresh Award would have to be passed inevitably giving the respondent the right to file a reference under Section 18 thereafter. However, the learned Addl. Advocate General appearing for the appellant-State took up the categoric stand that Section 9 (3) of the Act was directory in nature and any bona fide omission to serve any one or a host of persons interested in claiming compensation individually or personally was a mere irregularity which would not vitiate either the Award or the proceedings prior or subsequent thereto. In view of some conflict of authority and the significance of the question, the matter was referred to the Full Bench.