KURUKSHETRA DEVELOPMENT BOARD Vs. JAGTAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the prayer is for setting aside the order dated 21.9.2004 passed by the Additional District Judge, Kurukshetra whereby objections filed by the petitioner in execution proceedings were dismissed. Similar orders have also been challenged in other connected revision petitions i.e. Civil Revision Nos. 5091 to 5116 of 2004. Therefore, all these revision petitions are being disposed of by a single order as the question of law and facts involved are common in all these petitions. The facts have, however, been taken from Civil Revision No. 5090 of 2004.

(2.) THE facts as emerge from the record and stated by the counsel for the parties are that land of the private respondent Nos. 1 to 3 (hereinafter referred to "landowners") was acquired and an award in respect of compensation for their land was passed by the Land Acquisition Collector on 11.9.1990. Possession of the land was taken on 16.11.1990. Reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short "the Act") was decided on 30.3.1993. The landowners have filed execution application wherein they have laid a claim that they were also entitled to interest on the amount of solatium as well as the additional amount paid to them. The execution application was contested by the present petitioner by filing objections.

(3.) MR . S.C. Sibal, learned Senior counsel for the petitioner-Board submitted that the award never provided for interest on solatium and additional amount and, therefore, the executing Court could not go behind the award and grant the same to the landowners. He placed reliance on the judgments reported in Bhawarlal Bhandari v. Universal Heavy Mechanical Lifting Enterprises, (1999)1 SCC 558, Rameshwar Dass Gupta v. State of U.P. and another, 1996(4) S.C.T. 575 : AIR 1997 Supreme Court 410, Food Corporation of India v. S.N. Nagarkar, 2002(1) S.C.T. 1049 : AIR 2002 Supreme Court 808, in support of this contention.