SHAM LAL Vs. UJAGAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition is directed against the order of the Collector, Land Acquisition, Chandigarh, dated 6th June, 1975. Briefly stated, the facts giving rise to this petition are that a piece of land situated within the revenue estate of village Moga Jit Singh was acquired by the State. Compensation of the acquired land was assessed by the Collector in the name of Shri Ujagar Singh, who was the original owner of the land, vide award dated 17th March, 1973. Sham Lal and his other brothers claimed that their father Puran Chand had purchased the very land for which the compensation was awarded, from Shri Ujaggar Singh by a registered sale deed registered in April, 1964. Puran Chand having died his sons, Sham Lal and others, put an application under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act. The first five paragraphs of the application contain the averments that the land in question was purchased by Shri Puran Chand, father of the appellants, from Shri Ujaggar Singh, by a registered sale deed in April, 1964, and that according to the will left by Puran Chand deceased, the applicants were the owners of the said land and thus were interested in making the reference. It was further averred that the applicants were not present and were not represented before the Collector and the Collector did not issue any notice to the applicants under Section 12(2) of the Land Acquisition Act, and that the applicant came to know of the award only two days back from the date of the filing of the application under Section 18 of the Act. In the subsequent paragraphs, grounds were given as to why the compensation awarded by the Collector be enhanced. A prayer was made that the matter be referred for determining compensation to the competent Court. After going through the averments, I am unable to agree with the contention of the learned counsel for the respondent that in this application, the applicants had not raised the dispute regarding their entitlement to the compensation. Various averments made in the application hardly go to show that the applicants asserted that they are the owners of the land in question and that the compensation awarded is too less than the market price.

(2.) The Collector dismissed this application vide the impugned order on two grounds, firstly, holding that the land in question was still in the name of Shri Ujaggar Singh in the revenue records and the vendee having failed to get the mutation entered in the revenue records of the basis of the registered deed, therefore, the applicants, who derive the title of their father, Shri Puran Chand vendee, have no locus standi to move the application. It was observed in the last paragraph of the order that the application was barred by time and on these findings the application was rejected.

(3.) After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, I am of the opinion that the impugned order is liable to be quashed. The Collector had no jurisdiction to determine as to whether Shri Ujaggar Singh was entitled to the compensation or the applicants. It is solely within the jurisdiction of the District Judge, if the reference has been forwarded to him, to determine about the entitlement of the compensation. As regards the finding that the application was barred by limitation; the said finding has been arrived at without mentioning any reason. As is clear in the application itself, it was pleaded that the applicants came to know about the award only two days before the filing of the application and that they were not present before the Collector, therefore, their plea that the application was within limitation, should have been conscientiously considered by the Collector. The learned counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, pointed out that the presence of Sham Lal, one of the applicants, is mentioned in the award itself when the award was announced. However, these are matters which have to be looked into by the Collector for coming to the conclusion as to whether the petition made before him was within limitation or not. The Collector did not apply her mind to this aspect and merely by writing a sentence that the petition was time barred, rejected the petition basing the decision on another ground regarding which she had no jurisdiction to determine, as already observed in the earlier part of the judgment. The impugned order passed by the Collector stands vitiated and the same is hereby quashed.