KAFILA FORGE LTD Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present order shall dispose of two appeals i.e. RFA Nos.6934 and 6935 of 2012, filed under Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short 'the Act') which are directed against the Award dated 02.06.2012 passed by the Reference Court, Sonepat, whereby reference petitions have been dismissed primarily on the ground of limitation.

(2.) Vide the said Award, the Reference Court has come to the conclusion that in view of Section 18, the reference petitions were time barred and the petitioners were litigating before this Court till 2002 and before the Apex Court in the year 2003. They had also filed two civil suits and written statement had also been filed on 20.01.2004 in one of the civil suit whereby the details of the Awards had been given. Reliance was, accordingly, placed upon the judgment of the Apex Court passed in 'Raja Harish Chandra Raj Singh Vs. The Deputy Land Acquisition Officer and another', AIR 1961 Supreme Court 1500, 'State of Punjab Vs. Mst. Qaisar Jehan Begum and another', AIR 1963 SC 1604 and 'Bhagwan Das and others Vs. State of U.P. and others', 2010 (3) SCC 545 that the petitioners could not claim that they did not have knowledge of the passing of the Awards dated 15.12.1998 and 28.04.1999 and they were illiterate, as being legal entity running a factory in the premises which had been acquired. The reference petition being beyond the period of limitation of six months, it was held that the petitioners have slept to avail their remedy by not filing the reference petition and, therefore, both the reference petitions were dismissed by coming to the conclusion that the same were filed on 04.01.2005.

(3.) It was noticed that the petitioners had left no stone untouched having filed two civil suits. It had been specifically pleaded by the respondents that they had been intimated about the passing of the award during the proceedings before this Court and as well as before the Civil Court. The Director of the company had given evasive reply regarding the filing of the written statement by the respondents, whereby the details of the awards had been given. The written statement filed in the proceedings before this Court, Mark RB was also taken into consideration, wherein also there was a mention regarding the passing of the awards. Resultantly, keeping in view the fact that multifarious litigations had been set up by the petitioners, they could not claim that they had no knowledge of the award.