NATHU Vs. STATE OF H P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner's land was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act). The award was announced on 31-7-1973. The compensation was paid to the petitioner on 26-8-1973 against receipt. Thereafter on 31-8-1973 the petitioner made a reference petition under Section 18 of the Act before the Collector requiring him to forward the same to the District Court for adjudication of the proper amount of compensation payable to him. The Collector vide his order dt. 2-1-1976 declined to forward that application to the District Court on the ground that the petitioner having received the amount of compensation without protest, the reference petition was not maintainable in law.

(2.) The petitioner now seeks to challenge the aforesaid order dt. 2-f-I976 passed by the Collector refusing to forward his reference petition under Section 18 of the Act to the Court for adjudication. The petitioner claims that the aforesaid order dt. 2-1-1976 was passed in his absence and without affording him any opportunity of being heard and is, therefore, bad. His further contention is that he had received the amount of compensation under protest and that his reference petition had been wrongly withheld by the Collector.

(3.) In order to ascertain whether the amount of compensation had been received by the petitioner without protest or under protest, the Land Acquisition Collector was directed to produce the original record concerning acquisition of the land in question for perusal of the Court. Such record has now been produced by the Land Acquisition Collector. A perusal of this record shows that the amount of compensation was received by the petitioner against entry No. 1154 without protest. It may be observed that there were some other landowners like the petitioner who were shown to have received the amount of compensation under protest in the same record. The petitioner thus having received the amount of compensation without protest before filing his reference petition under Section 18 of the Act, the Collector in my view was perfectly justified in refusing to forward the reference petition to the court since such a reference petition did not lie.