A bona fide omission to serve a notice under Section 9 (3) of the Land Acquisition Act on any one of the numerous persons interested in claiming compensation would not vitiate the award of the Collector rendered under Section 12 and the proceedings subsequent thereto.

S.S.SANDHAWALIA, J.

1. The significant question visualised in the order of reference to this Full Bench may be more precisely formulated in the following terms :-

"Whether a bona fide omission to serve rice envisaged by S.9 (3) of the Land Acquisition Act on anyone of the numerous persons interested in claiming compensation would vitiate the award of Collector rendered under Sec.12 and the proceedings subsequent thereto?"

2. At the very outset I would wish to record that for the detailed reasons stated hereinafter, the answer to the aforesaid question has to be rendered in the negative, because of the massive weight of precedent, the clear and the specific provisions of the Land Acquisition Act and upon larger principle.

3. It is plain that the issue aforesaid purely legal and the peculiar circumstances of this case would pale into relative insignificance. Since I propose first a focus attention primarily on the legal issue, it becomes unnecessary to advert the facts in any great detail. Suffice it to mention that in the judgment under appeal, the learned single Judge had found that the special notice under Section 9 (3) of the Act (hereinafter called Act) had been served upon a co-sharer and not personally upon the respondent landowner Lt. Col. Gurdial Singh and on that ground he allowed an opportunity to him to prefer a reference under Section 18 of the Act by specifically condoning the delay and allowing further period of three months for doing so. This Letters Patent Appeal moved by the State of Punjab originally came up before my learned brother D.S. Tewatia, J. and myself. At that stage the judgment of the learned single Judge (reported in 1979 Pun LJ 18) was inter alia sought to be sustained on behalf of the respondent on the ground that the failure to specifically serve him a notice under Section 9 (3) would entail the vitiation of the whole of the Award and the proceedings following thereafter. Consequently, it was claimed that a fresh Award would have to be passed inevitably giving the respondent the right to file a reference under Section 18 thereafter. However, the learned Addl. Advocate General appearing for the appellant-State took up the categoric and that Section 9 (3) of the Act was directory in nature and any bona fide omission to serve any one or a host of persons interested in claiming compensation individually or personally was a mere irregularity which would not vitiate either the Award or the proceedings prior or subsequent thereto. In view of some conflict of authority and the significance of the question, the matter was referred to the Full Bench.

4. At the very threshold it calls for pointed notice that there already exists a consistent stream of unbroken precedent flowing serenely over eight decades or more in most of the High Courts which obviously must have the pride of place apart from equally other significant factors supporting that view. Herein, one might well begin with the following authoritative enunciation by the privy Council in Ezra V/s. Secretary of State, (1905) ILR 32 Cal 605 as regards the true character of the proceedings resulting in the Award by the Collector under Section 12 of the Act :-

"....When the sections relating to this matter are read together, it will be found that the proceedings resulting in this "award" are administrative and not judicial; that the "award" in which the enquiry results is merely a decision (binding only on the Collector) as to what sum shall be tendered to the owner of the lands; and that, if a judicial ascertainment of value is desired by the owner, he can obtain it by requiring the matter to be referred by the Collector to the Court ......"

It is against the aforesaid background that the long line of precedent in the various High Courts may be noticed chronologically beginning from the celebrated Division Bench judgment in Ganga Ram Marwari v, Secretary of State for India, (1903) ILR 30 Cal 576, wherein the very question before us, was specif