Competent Authority under National Highways Act becomes functus officio after passing award under Section 3G(1) and lacks jurisdiction to issue corrigendum or modified award for same land.

JUDGMENT :

Vaishali Patil – Jadhav, J.

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith and heard finally with the consent of the parties.

2. By this petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners have prayed for a writ of mandamus directing the respondent no.2 to pay to the petitioners the amount of Rs.18,34,221/- as per the modified/additional award passed on 14.08.2017 by respondent no.3 - Competent Authority for acquisition of petitioners' land for National Highway.

3. Some of the relevant facts for the purpose of deciding this petition are as under :-

Land block no.188/1 admeasuring 00 H 41 R is owned by petitioner nos.1 and 2, block no.188/2 admeasuring 00 H 42 R is owned by petitioner nos.3 and 4 and block no.188/3 admeasuring 00 H 41 R is owned by petitioner nos.5 and 6 at village Narval, Tq. & Dist. Dhule. The land is acquired for the purpose of broadening (4-laning) of the National Highway no.211. The notification under Section 3A of the National Highways Act, 1956 was published on 04.09.2013. The petitioners filed objection that area of block nos.188/1, 188/2, 188/3 is shown as one piece of land of 8800 Sq. Mtrs, which should be measured and area of each land holders should be shown separately.

4. Respondent No.3 declared an award under Section 3-G(1) of the National Highways Act on 04.08.2016 and granted compensation of Rs.69,39,240/-. The petitioners have received the compensation amount and have also challenged the award by invoking Section 3-G(5) of the National Highways Act and filed Arbitration Petition before the Collector, Dhule, who is appointed as Arbitrator by the Central Government for this acquisition. The petitioners had again filed objection before the Competent Authority on 31.07.2017 stating that the authority should not have applied belting system while awarding the compensation instead, separate areas of each block holders should have been taken into consideration and fixed price should have been applied to the area owned by each holder. Respondent no.3 after considering the representations issued Corrigendum dated 14.08.2017 and has modified the award and granted compensation of Rs.18,34,221/- as a difference between the already granted compensation and gave compensation at the rate of Rs.250/- per Sq. Mtrs. and belting system was removed as applied earlier. The petitioners are seeking enforcement of this modified award under Section 3-H of National Highways Act, 1956 by way of this petition.

5. Learned Advocate for the petitioners Mr. A.B. Kale would submit that after passing the award under Section 3-G of the National Highways Act, the petitioners had pointed out the respondent no.3 - Competent Authority the mistake made in treating the land block no.188 as one piece of land, though it has been owned by different persons and the land is comprised in three separate blocks as 188/1, 188/2 and 188/3. It is submitted that though the representations were made by the petitioners still the award dated 04.08.2016 was passed by applying the belting system and by treating the block no.188 as one piece of land. He would submit that earlier award dated 04.08.2016 is only modified by way of Corrigendum dated 14.08.2017 and no fresh award is being passed. It is titled as "Corrigendum", hence it cannot be said that a fresh award is being passed but it has only corrected the earlier award. He would submit that respondent no.2 should have immediately deposited the amount as required by Section 3-H wherein it is expected that as soon as the competent authority determines the amount the same sh