(SAIT) SIVA PRATAPA BHATTADU Vs. AELMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal relates to the conflicting claims of the parties to money awarded, as compensation for land acquired. The appellants are the fourth mortgagees of the owner of the land and the respondents are the attaching creditors of the owner and have attached the land in execution of their decrees. The fourth claimant (the first respondent) attached the land in execution of his decree on 9 October 1920. The mortgage in favour of the appellants was executed on 12 November 1921, and the attachment by the seventh and eighth claimants (Respondents 2 and 3) was in October 1922. The award of the Collector is dated 31 July 1922, but that does not decide the respective rights of the several claimants, but referred the question to the District Court for decision. The compensation money was not received in the District Court until after October 1922, as distinctly stated by the District Judge, although an attempt has been made to show that he was wrong.

(2.) The first question raised for the appellants is that the attaching decree holders are not persons interested in the land within the meaning of Section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act, and it is contended that, in order to come within the definition, it is necessary that the party should have some legal interest in the land. The definition in the Act, however, is as follows: The expression, persons interested includes all persons claiming an interest in compensation to be made on account of the acquisition of the land under this Act.

(3.) This definition does not seem to contemplate that a person interested need have a legal interest in the land, because it specifically alludes to interest in the compensation to be made, and it has frequently been held that a person may be interested within the meaning of the Act without holding any legal estate in the land ; and in two cases, Chhuttan Lal V/s. Mul Chand [1917] 18 P.R. 1917 and J.C. Galstaun V/s. Secretary of State [1905] 10 C.W.N. 195. it was held that a person who held an agreement for sale from the owner was a person interested within the meaning of the Act, although such agreement creates no legal estate; and In re The Land Acquisition Act, In the matter of Pestonji Jehangir Modi [1913] 37 Bom. 76 it was held that a person may be interested in the compensation money without having any interest in the land in the legal sense of the term. Here it is clear that an attaching decree-holder who seeks to satisfy his, claim out of the land is certainly interested in the compensation that has to be paid for that land, as it is a matter of considerable importance to him that a sufficient amount of compensation should be paid in order that he may be able to satisfy his decree, and I think there can be no doubt that an attaching decree-holder is a person interested in the land within the meaning of the Act.