GURANDITTA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Pursuant to acquisition of the house owned by predecessor of the petitioners by the Union of India, a reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short "the Act") was sought and on receipt thereof by the learned District Judge, Gurdaspur, the same was entrusted to the Court of Additional District Judge, Gurdaspur for adjudication. While it was fixed for petitioner's evidence on February 9, 1989, neither the petitioner nor his counsel appeared and consequently, the same was dismissed in default. An application for restoration was moved on May 8, 1989, inter alia, on the ground that in fact, an application for bringing on record the legal representatives of deceased Gurun Ditta was fixed for hearing on February 9, 1989 not the main case for petitioner's evidence and that when the case was called, Baldev Singh, one of the applicants, went to call his counsel who was busy in some other professional work and on return it was revealed that the case had already been dismissed in default. Upon notice, the aforementioned application was contested by the Union of India and an issue was framed as to "whether there were sufficient grounds for restoration of the case or not". While deciding the issue, the learned Additional District Judge, vide the impugned order dated September 23, 1991, held that the application was hopelessly time barred and the delay has not been satisfactorily explained and as such no sufficient grounds were made out for recalling the order dated February 9, 1989. As a necessary corollary, the application for restoration was dismissed, prompting the petitioners to impugn the said order by way of present revision petition.

(2.) I have heard Shri Pritam Saini, learned counsel for the petitioner and Smt. Daya Chaudhary, learned Senior Standing Counsel for the Union of India, and have perused the record.

(3.) Shri Pritam Saini has contended that a reference was sought by the predecessor-in-interest of the petitioners under Section 18 of the Act and the same having been referred for adjudication, it could not have been dismissed in default by the learned Court, therefore, even assuming that the petitioners failed to explain the cause of their non-appearance on February 9, 1989, the learned Court could not have dismissed the reference in default and ought to have answered the same merits on the basis of evidence on record. He further contends that the learned Additional District Judge has dismissed the application for restoration of the reference on the premise that the same was required to be moved within a period of 30 days whereas such an application could be filed within a period of 3 years, as held in a series of judgments by this Court. In this regard, reliance has been placed by him on Smt. Kamla Devi v. State of Haryana, 1986 PLR 692, Gurbax Singh v. State of Punjab, 1987 PLJ 609 and Khazan Singh (Dead) by LRs v. Union of India, 2002 (1) LACC 354.