The central legal point established in the judgment is the acceptance of the proposal for settlement by the respondent authority to a substantial extent and the non-precedential nature of the resolution mode adopted.

ORDER :

1. By way of this contempt petition, it has been alleged that the respondent authorities i.e. respondent Nos. 3 and 4 have willfully not complied with the directions contained in order dated 26.08.2022 and 05.01.2023 passed in Special Civil Application No. 6037 of 2022 and Misc. Civil Application No. 1 of 2022 respectively.

2. The background of the case is that in the year 2009, the lands of the farmers/landowners, who are the members of the original petitioner No. 1, registered society, whose “right of user” was acquired under the provisions of Petroleum & Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as “the P & MP Act”) and as such the issue arose with respect to compensation in view of Section 10 of the P & MP Act. The said issue relating to compensation was the subject matter of adjudication before the competent authority and District Courts at Panchmahals, Dahod, Bharuch and Vadodara respectively but the said proceedings were not finalized and as such with a view to see that the overall resolutions of the said dispute can come to an end a detailed proposal dated 09.02.2022 for settlement of claim was submitted before respondent Nos. 3 & 4 GAIL, as indicated above, with respect to 2080 members of petitioners No. 1-society. Learned Mamlatdar was appointed as competent authority under Section 10 of the P & MP Act which was contrary to the law laid down by Hon'ble Apex Court in case of Trilok Sudhirbhai Pandya vs. Union of India and Others, (2011) 10 SCC 203 and Laljibhai Kadvabhai Savaliya and Others vs. State of Gujarat and Others, (2016) 9 SCC 791 and it was held in Special Civil Application No. 3803 of 2013 in the decision dated 11.02.2022 that appointment of competent authority is contrary to the law laid down by aforesaid decisions.

2.1 In view of such circumstance, the original petitioners had to approach this Court by way of Special Civil Application No. 6037 of 2022 seeking reliefs to declare the appointment of competent authority as illegal and directing the appointment of competent authority as per the law laid down by the Hon'ble Apex Court, as referred to above and further sought a direction to pay just and adequate compensation to 2126 landowners/farmers, who are members of the petitioner No. 1 - society.

2.2 In the said writ petition, after hearing the parties, the Hon'ble Court disposed of by holding that appointment of Mamlatdar, as competent authority was illegal. However, since considerable long time had elapsed, it was ordered to deal with the proposal dated 09.02.2022 submitted by the original petitioners and directed the same to put its logical end by respondent Nos. 3 and 4 authority expeditiously at any rate within an outer limit of eight weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of the order and thereby the aforementioned petition came to be disposed of.

2.3 In view of the circumstances stated, it was not decided in eight weeks' time and the respondent authority submitted an application for seeking extension of time as contained in the said order dated 26.08.2022 passed in Special Civil Application No. 6037 of 2022 by submitting a Misc. Civil Application No. 1 of 2022 and considering the circumstances stated therein, after hearing, the time limit was extended for a further period of two months from the expiry of original time period (i.e. 06.12.2022) for considering the proposal dated 09.02.2022. Though, it is stated that even this extended period has also not been utilized and the direction remained not complied with, the present Misc. Civil Application is filed under the provisions of Contempt of Courts Act. But it appears that in between some development is projected by the petitioner itself which deserves to be quoted hereunder:

“Some of the landowners/farmers appear to have approached the District Court Dahod at Limkheda against the common award passed by the competent authority i.e. Case Award No. 2 of 2019 dated 30.04.2021 wherein vide order da