IMPORTANT POINT
Amendment to section 24(2) of 2013 Act inserting a new proviso by amending ordinance w.e.f. 01.01.2015 deleting provision for exclusion of the period of stay is prospective and will not affect appeals filed before the amendment.

JUDGMENT

V.GOPALA GOWDA, J.

1. The abovementioned applications are filed by the appellants for allowing the concerned appeals in terms of Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (in short ‘the Act of 2013’). The appellant-land owners have come to this Court questioning the correctness of the common judgment and order dated 19.04.2011 passed by the High Court of Punjab & Haryana at Chandigarh in Civil Writ Petition No.5512 of 2001 and batch petitions by which the High Court dismissed the Writ Petitions filed by the appellants herein.

2. As all the appeals are identical involving similar question of law, for the sake of brevity we will discuss the facts of the case in C.A. No. 7424 of 2013 which are stated hereunder:

The appellants are original residents and have their houses along with their land in village-Sohana, Tehsil Mohali in District Roop Nagar (Punjab). The State of Punjab has framed a special Act known as ‘The Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act, 1995’ (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act of 1995’) to construct a residential urban estate with the main object to undertake urban development and housing programme. On 21.02.2000, the State of Punjab through Secretary, Punjab Housing and Development, the respondent No.1 herein, issued notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short ‘the L.A. Act’) for the purpose of setting up a residential urban estate in the area of revenue estate of village Mauli Baidwan, SAS Nagar (Mohali). The said acquisition notification covered a total extent of 1264.84 acres of land in four villages –Mauli Baidwan, Sohana, Raipur Khurd and Lakhnausr in Roopnagar district of Punjab out of which the land of the appellants in the present batch of appeals constituted 102 acres of land in small pockets of the said 1264.84 acres. Objections were raised against the same by the appellants under Section 5A alleging that in the year 1996 the Punjab State Government had framed a scheme called “Farmers Friendly and Land Pooling Exchange Scheme”, and as per the contents of the said Scheme, for every acre of land transferred by the land owners to Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA), the land owners will be given back approximately 1000 square yards after development and the land owners were advised not to sell their land. Therefore, the appellants objected to the said notification under Section 4 of the L.A. Act, as the same was violative of the principles of promissory estoppel. The said objections were not decided by the Land Acquisition Officer. Thereafter, on 02.02.2001, the notification under Section 6 of the L.A. Act was published.

3. The appellants filed writ petition No. 5512 of 2001 before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh alleging inter alia that respondent no. 1 has started acquiring the land without complying with the provisions and in utter violation of the Act of 1995 & therefore the acquisition proceedings are bad in law and liable to be quashed.

4. The High Court vide order dated 19.04.2011 dismissed writ petition No. 5512 of 2001 along with batch matters in CWP No. 4981 of 2001. Hence, the present appeal.

5. It has been contended by the learned senior counsel for the appellants that the L.A. Act has been replaced by the Act of 2013, which has come into force w.e.f. 01.01.2014 and that Section 24(2) of the Act of 2013 provides that where an award under Section 11 of the L.A. Act has been made five years or more prior to the commencement of the Act of 2013 but the physical possession of the land has not been taken or the compensation has not been paid, the said proceedings shall be deemed to have lapsed. In the present case, the proceedings under the L.A. Act have lapsed for both the above said reasons because the case of the appellants satisfy both the conditions as referred to in Section 24(2) of the Act of 2013. The award under Section 11 of the L.