JUDGMENT :

K. VINOD CHANDRAN, J.

Leave granted.

2. The appellant is the requestioning authority, which is aggrieved by the application filed by the party respondents; directed to be entertained under Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894¹[Hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act of 1894’] and allowed, by the impugned order.

3. The party respondents claim under their predecessors-in-interest whose lands were proceeded against under Section 4(1) read with Section 17 of the Act of 1894 and acquired. An award was passed on 15.02.1977 and the entire compensation, admittedly, was received by the predecessors-in-interest, who did not file any application for reference under Section 18 of the Act of 1894. But others, whose lands were also acquired by the very same notification, sought a reference under Section 18, which though referred, was rejected by the Additional District Judge, Ghaziabad, by a judgment and decree dated 25.11.1981. An appeal was filed therefrom under Section 54 of the Act of 1894, being First Appeal No.458 of 1982, which by Annexure P1, was disposed of on 18.04.2022. The party respondents, hence, filed an application under Section 28A of the Act of 1894 on 23.05.2022, within three months from the date of Annexure P1. No consideration having been carried out, the applicants filed a writ petition, in which expeditious decision was ordered. The application under Section 28A, subsequently stood rejected as not maintainable since it was filed on the basis of the decision passed in First Appeal and not based on an order passed by the Reference Court under Section 18 of the Act of 1894.

4. Various decisions were relied on by the applicants before the High Court, in a challenge to the order of the Collector. The High Court, by the impugned order, found that the decision of a three Judge Bench in Union of India and Another v. Pradeep Kumari and Others, (1995) 2 SCC 736, regulated the issue. Therein the three Judge Bench had categorically found that the benefit under Section 28A accrues not only from the first award passed on reference under Section 18 but also from any one of the awards after coming into force of Section 28-A, right of determination not being confined to the earliest award made by the Court. The said view was reaffirmed in Banwari and Others v. Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (HSIIDC) and Another, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3685 wherein on an identical situation of the reference being rejected, the entitlement to file an application within three months from an award passed in an appeal by the High Court, was permitted.

5. The questions, as to who would be entitled under Section 28A and when the limitation commences, have engaged this Court’s attention in numerous cases. The decisions having come from Benches of varying strength, we need to look at those decisions to put the law in the correct perspective.

6. Pradeep Kumari (supra) was by a three Judge Bench, wherein the award was made by the Land Acquisition Officer (LAO) and the respondents therein did not seek a reference under Section 18, but other landowners did. Some of the references were disposed of prior to 24.09.1984, on which date, the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984, introduced Section 28A in the Act of 1894. The Union of India (UoI) contended that the earliest award by the Reference Court after Section 28A came into force, was on 27.12.1984. The application filed by Pradeep Kumari was within the period of three months from a subsequent award dated 21.02.1987. The Collector, under Section 28A awarded enhanced compensation, equal to that in the subsequent award. An appeal was filed before the High Court by the UoI. One other landowner, Savitri Devi, sought for the benefit of a decision dated 05.09.1986 of the High Court in an appeal, to be extended to her, which application under Section 28A was dismissed by the Collector, finding that Section 28A would be available only on the basis of the award of the Refe