HARI CHAND Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Their Lordships are invited in these 12 consolidated appeals to reconsider a number of awards made by way of compensation for the acquisition by the Government of certain bungalows in the Cantonment of Peshawar. In the Courts below a large number of questions were raised and debated in relation to the awards, but before their Lordships, Mr. Dunne, on behalf of the appellants, confined himself to two or three main issues. As a matter of history the Cantonments are regulated, so far as regards grants to individuals, by an Order of the Governor-General in Council dated so far back as 1836. That Order appears to have been carried forward to date by a series of subsequent Orders more or less identical in their terms. Where the Government grant any rights to individuals within the area of the Cantonments, one of the cardinal conditions of the grant is that the Government retain the power of resumption at any time on giving one month's notice. If they give that notice they are required to pay the value of such buildings as may have been authorized to be erected. In this case the Government proposed to resume 12 or 13 of properties originally granted out, and they issued notifications of resumption, of which there is an example in the case of appellant 1 Hari Chand's property. It runs as follows :

(2.) Whereas the land comprising the site of the property known as Bungalow No. 5, Fort Road, Peshawar Cantonment, belongs to Government and is held by you on Cantonment tenure under which Government are entitled to resume the said land subject to paying the value of such buildings as may have been authorized to be erected thereon; And whereas Government have decided to resume possession of the said land and to obtain possession of the buildings standing thereon: Take notice therefore that Government will under all powers enabling them in that behalf through their Agent on 15 October 1932 resume possession of the said land and your occupation and any rights, easements and interests you may have in the said land and the buildings thereon shall cease as from that date.

(3.) The notification also contained an offer of compensation. Apparently none of those to whom the notices were addressed was satisfied with the offer, and while the natural and ordinary course would have been to proceed to arbitration for the purpose of assessing the compensation, for some reason or other that course does not seem to have been pursued or to have been acceptable to the parties, and the Government accordingly resorted to the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 for the purpose of expropriating the owners of the bungalows on the terms of that Statute. Accordingly a notification was served on each of the proprietors of the bungalows, and in the recital of each notification it is set out that the Government claimed to be the owners of the land upon which the various bungalows and outhouses had been erected. That is set out as a matter of narrative in the notification. Then it proceeds to state that the Government have given notice that the land has been resumed by them and that they are desirous now of acquiring the buildings thereon and any other outstanding interest therein, and for that purpose they invoke the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894.