Essential requisites for reference under Land acquisition Act
Learned counsel for the petitioners has pressed two points. In the first place, if was urged that the application dated 12th August 1964 (Annexure I to the Supplementary Affidavit) was in law an application praying for a reference under Section 18 Land Acquisition Act. In this connection learned counsel has placed reliance upon Krishnammal v. Collector of Coimbatore, (AIR 1927 Mad 282). In my view, the submission has no merit. Section 18(1), Land Acquisition Act provides that "any person interested who has not accepted the award may, by written application to the Collector require that the matter be referred by the Collector for the determination of the Court." Under Sub-section (2) of Section 18, Land Acquisition Act the application has to state the grounds on which the objection to the award is taken. Thus, there are three essential conditions for an application being treated as an application for a reference under Section 18 of the Act. It must be by a person who has not accepted the award. The petitioners allege that they accepted the compensation payable under the award under protest. The respondents in their counter affidavit controverted this. It has been stated that the petitioners appeared on the same day the award was made, namely on 12th August, 1964 and received the money payable to them as compensation without making any protest. Normally, a writ petition is not entertained when disputed questions of fact are involved. On this point of fact the parties have sworn contradictory affidavits. It is hence difficult to allow this point. In such a state of affairs, it cannot be said that a person interested who had not accepted the award had made the application dated 12th August 1964.
4. In the next place, the application has to be in writing and has to require the Collector to refer the matter for determination of the Court. The application made by some of the petitioners stated that they were not satisfied with the compensation awarded. They were accepting the compensation subject to the determination of the compensation by the Civil Courts. Having said that, they, further stated that they were doing so because they were thinking of making a reference to the District Judge against the award. This last sentence in the application clearly brings out the intention behind making this application and the intention was that they were not satisfied with the compensation and that they were thinking of applying for a reference. Clearly they had not till then settled their minds and were not definite about making an application for a reference. They were still thinking about it. Under the circumstances, this application dated 12th August, 1964, could not be deemed to be an application requiring the Collector to refer the matter to the Court for determination of the compensation. The second condition of Section 18 Land Acquisition Act also remained unsatisfied.
5. The third condition is that the application should state the grounds of objection to the award. The application made by the petitioners did not state any particular grounds of objection. That is made further clear by the other application dated 14th April, 1965 made by some of the petitioners. In that application as many as seven definite grounds of attack against the award were stated. Under the circumstances, the Land Acquisition Officer was justified in not treating the application dated 12th August, 1964, as an application under Section 18, Land Acquisition Act. The decision of the Madras High Court is equally inapplicable to the facts of the present case. In that case the person interested had stated, "I will not receive the amount, but will contest the matter in the District Court." This was taken as settled intention of getting the matter determined by the District Court and as such the application was treated as one under Section 18, Land Acquisition Act. Here, the application made by the petitioners clearly brought out that the petitioners had not till then decided that the reference be made. This case is distinguishable.
Allahabad High Court
Om Gir And Ors. vs The State Of U.P. And Ors. on 4 February, 1971
Equivalent citations: AIR 1971 All 413
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