1. - These appeals arise out of different awards passed by the Land Acquisition Officer for the land in question acquired under the provisions of Land Acquisition Act, 1893 for Union of India for defence establishment in 10 L.L.G. Lalgarh Barani Sercond, Kikar Chak Barani, 21 S.D.S. 22, 23, 24 S.D.S. under which a large chunk of land was acquired by the State Government for Union of India for defence establishment.

2. The land owners filed the reference application under Section 18 of the Act. The facts of the appeal No.42/1986 -Mukh Ram & Anr. v. State of Rajasthan & Ors. are taken here into account. The award in the present case appears to have been made on 24.12.1977 as noted on page No.2 of the impugned order dated 22.9.1995 whereas the reference application under Section 18 of the Act was filed by the land owners, the present appellants, before the learned Land Acquisition Officer, S.D.O., Hanumangarh on 9.6.1983. The learned S.D.O., Hanumangarh appears to have forwarded the said reference application to the learned Civil Court, who decided the said reference application by the impugned order dated 22.9.1995 deciding the both the issues against the land owners. The issue No.1 on the merit of enhancement of compensation for the land acquired and the issue No.2 of the reference being barred by limitation.

3. Mr. S.L. Jain, learned counsel appearing for the appellants submitted that the reference application was filed before the Land Acquisition Officer along with an application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act for condonation of delay, if any, in filing the said reference application. He submitted that though the land owners were not present at the time when the award in question was made by the Land Acquisition Officer nor any notice under Section 12(2) of the Act was served upon them and since they came to know of the award and contents thereof only on 6.6.1983, the reference application could not have been rejected as time barred by the learned court below. He further submitted that since a large chunk of land was acquired by the State in some of the cases of the persons similarly situated given the compensation and then enhanced by this Court. In other cases, the delay in filing the reference application was also condoned by the learned court below and the appeals filed by the respondents State / Union of India has been dismissed by this Court. He, therefore, prayed that the impugned order of learned Civil Court (Senior Division), Sri Ganganagar dated 22.9.1995 rejecting the reference application deserves to be set aside and treating the reference as within limitation the enhanced compensation deserves to be awarded to the land owners as has been done in other cases.

4. On the side opposite learned counsels for the respondents Mr. Ravi Bhansali, Mr. DLR Vyas for Mr. B.M. Bora, Mr. Rajesh Choudhary for L.R. Choduahry, Mr. Ravi Panwar for Rajesh Panwar and Mr. Manju Choudhary have contended that the reference was barred by limitation and the issue No.2 has been rightly decided against the land owners as the land owners had accepted the compensation without any demur under the said award way back in the year 1978-79 itself and, therefore, they should be deemed to have knowledge of the award in those years and the reference application filed in the year 1983 on 9.6.1983 in the present case cannot be said to be within limitation. The learned counsels relied upon the judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court in case of Land Acquisition Officer v. Shivabai & Ors - (1997)9 SCC 710 and a judgment of coordinate Bench of this court in S.B. Civil Misc. Appeal No.166/1996 - Jagdeepkaur v. State of Rajasthan & Anr. Dismissing the appeal of the land owners.

5. In order to decide the controversy in hand, Section 18 of the Act deserves to be noticed as under:-

"18. Reference to Court.-(1) Any person interested who has not accepted the award may, by written application to the Collector, require that the matter be referred by the C