ANAKH SINGH Vs. STATE OF H.P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Admittedly the land of the petitioner has been used by the respondent -State comprising Khasra No.40, old Khasra No.233 for the construction of road, but no compensation in accordance with law has been paid to them. The only ground to deny the compensation to the petitioners is that the land for the construction of the road was given by the petitioners and other people at the relevant time free of cost and without raising any objection during the construction work of the road.

(2.) Mr. Bhunesh Sharma, Advocate appearing on behalf of petitioner summits that the case of the petitioners is squarely covered by the judgments in Jau Ram Vs. State of H.P. ILR 1984 H.P. 351 and Nokhia and others. Vs. State of H.P. and others, ILR 1984 H.P. 906.

(3.) Honble Supreme Court in State of U.P. Vs. Manohar (2005) 2 Supreme Court Cases 126 has held that the property of the citizens can be acquired only in accordance with law. Their lordships have held as under: "The appellants appeared through counsel before the High Court and produced certain records. In view of the correspondence, to which we have referred, between the officers of the State, the High Court came to the conclusion that the case made out by the respondent was acceptable and that the State should be directed to take steps to pay compensation to the petitioner within 3 months with appropriate interest in accordance with the law. The High Court contemptuously dismissed the arguments of the counsel for the appellant that the petitioner had already been paid the compensation but that the records evidencing such payment were not available as they had been "weeded out" due to the delay on the part of the respondent in approaching the Court. As a matter of fact, the appellants were unable to produce even a scrap of evidence indicating that the land of the respondent had been taken over or acquired in any manner known to law or that he had even been paid any compensation in respect of such acquisition. That the land was thereafter construed upon, is not denied. Having heard the learned counsel for the appellants, we are satisfied that the case projected before the court by the appellants is utterly untebale and not worthy of emanating from any State which professes the lest regard to being a welfare State. When we pointed out to the learned counsel that, at this stage at least, the State should be gracious enough to accept its mistake and promptly pay the compensation to the respondent, the State has taken an intractable attitude and persisted in opposing what appears to be a just and reasonable claim of the respondent. Ours is a constitutional democracy and the rights available to the citizens are declared by the Constitution. Although Article 19 (1) (f) was deleted by the Forty -fourth Amendment to the Constitution, Article 300 -A ahs been placed in the Constitution, which reads as follows: "300 -A. Persons not to be deprived at property save by authority of law -No person shall deprived of his property save by authority of law." This is a case where we find utter lack of legal authority for deprivation of the respondents property by the appellants who are State authorities. In our view, this case was an eminently fit one for exercising the writ jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. In our view, the High Court was somewhat liberal in not imposing exemplary costs on the appellants. We found have perhaps followed suit, but for the intransigence displayed before us."