Reference of the dispute to Civil Court.

This is a petition in the nature of a writ of mandamus to direct the Special Tahsildar (Land Acquisition), II Ambattur at Saidapet, to refer his application dated 14th November, 1963 to the civil Court under sections 18 and 30 of the Land Acquisition Act, inasmuch as he is a person interested in the amount and in the apportionment of the compensation awarded.

The petitioner is an employee of the Dunlop Rubber Co. He and a few other employees of the company struck a bargain with one Pichai Pillai and his three daughters, the owners of the land acquired in the land acquisition proceedings. by entering into an agreement of purchase on 27th August, 1962 for a consideration of Rs. 27.750. In pursuance of the agreement, the petitioner paid a sum of Rs. 3 000 at the time of the registration on 27th August, 1962. Subsequently he invested a further sum of Rs. 4,000 towards preparing a blue print and making out a lay-out consisting of 35 plots of building sites of various dimensions with park and playground. The roads were also laid out and gravelled and the sites plotted with survey stones.

While so, the Government published a notification under section 4 (1) of the Act that the petitioner’s lands along with other lands were needed for the purpose of establishing the industrial estate near Avadi. The petitioner sent an application to the director of Industries and Commerce requesting him to exempt the acquisition of the lands concerned in this writ petition, or in the alternative that the sum of Rs. 18,251 paid as sale consideration might be awarded as compensation.

Nonetheless, the land acquisition proceedings continued by the issue of notices to the petitioner under sections 6 and 9 of the Act calling upon him to vacate and deliver possession. Finally an award was passed on 12th September, 1963 of which the petitioner had no notice. The petitioner came to know of the award on 3rd November, 1963 and on 4th November, 1963 sent an application to the Land Acquisition Officer under sections 18 and 30 of the Act requesting him to refer the matter to the civil Court, as he was a person interested in the amount and in the apportionment of the compensation awarded. The Land Acquisition Officer refused to consider his application, on the ground that he was not a person interested in the award and that hence his request for a reference under section 30 could not be considered. The petitioner, has therefore, filed this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying that a writ may issue directing the Special Tahsildar to refer his application to the civil Court.

The only question for consideration therefore is whether the petitioner is a person interested, as defined in section 3 (b) of the Land Acquisition Act.

The definition section says that the expression ‘person interested ‘includes all persons claiming an interest in compensation to be made on account of the acquisition of land under the Act. The expression ‘person interested ‘is very comprehensive and it does not profess to give an exhaustive definition. The expression ‘person interested ‘has been interpreted by various Courts, and the trend of the opinion seems to be that I should give a liberal interpretation. The earliest case on the point that comes to my mind is Pestonji Jehangir Modi, In re,1 where Justice Maclead said:

“Under section 3 (b) the expression ‘person interested ‘includes all persons claiming an interest in compensation to be made on account of the acquisition of land under the Act. It is quite possible that a person may be interested in the compensation money without having an interest in the land in the legal sense of the term.”

In Chhutan Lal v. Mulchand2, the Punjab Chief Court had to consider whether a, person who had entered into a valid agreement for the purchase of land was a ‘person interested ‘within the meaning of section 3 (b) of the Land Acquisition Act. It observed that the expression ‘person interested ‘as defined in the Act was wide eno