The absence of one or both the assessors at the time of rendering the award by the President of the Tribunal under Section 65 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922, would not vitiate the same.

S.S.SANDHAWALIA, J.

1. Whether the mere absence of one or both the assessors at the time of rendering the award by the President of the Tribunal under Section 65 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922 , would vitiate the same is the significant question which forms the common link in these six connected civil writ petitions admitted to a hearing by the Division Bench.

2. Since the question aforesaid is pristinely legal, and we do not propose herein to delve into the merits of each case it suffices to make a reference albeit briefly to the facts in C. W. 1403/ 1980. The petitioner was the owner of some land situated in Ambala City which was acquired by the respondent-Improvement Trust for the development Scheme No. 12. Consequent thereto the Collector rendered his award in which he assessed compensation at the rate of Rs. 10 per square yard. The petitioner and others whose land had been similarly acquired made applications under Sec.59 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act (herein called the Act) read with Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act for referring the matter to the Tribunal constituted under the Act for enhancement of the compensation awarded. These applications were resisted by the Trust and on the pleadings of the parties the Tribunal framed the necessary issues on the 17th of January, 1978. It deserves passing mention that similar applications made by other persons whose lands had been acquired for Scheme No. 12 as also for Scheme No. 5 were also before the Tribunal and all the applications were consolidated for trial and the entire evidence was recorded in the case of the petitioner. After duly recording the evidence the President of the Tribunal rendered a detailed award on the 21st of December, 1979, whereby he enhanced the compensation for the land acquired for Scheme No. 12 to Rs. 14/- instead of Rs. 10/- and similarly for Scheme No. 5 to Rs. 17/- instead of Rs. 13/- awarded by the Collector. The petitioner inter alia challenged the aforesaid award of the Tribunal on the ground that the two assessors to the President did not participate in the trial of the reference at all and, therefore, the entire proceedings and in particular the award rendered by the President of the Tribunal stands wholly vitiated.

3. Though the pleadings on the point are slightly ambivalent it was the admitted case of the parties before us that in the present case two learned Advocates Mr. V.K. Gupta and Mr. Sukhnandan Singh had been named as assessors to the President of the Tribunal under Section 60 of the Act. Nor was it in any dispute that notices were duly sent and served on both of them by the President of the Tribunal but none of them chose to participate in the proceedings at any stage. It is further the common case that there is no provision in the Act or the rules which compels the attendance of the assessors at the hearings of the Tribunal.

4. Relying basically on Section 58 and sub-section (1) of Section 60, Mr. Jain, on behalf of the petitioner, contended that the Tribunal herein shall consist of the President and two assessors. Therefrom it was sought to be deduced that the final award under Section 65 must also be rendered by all the three persons constituting the Tribunal and in any case, so far as findings under Section 65 (1) (a) are concerned, these must be of the body as a whole. Consequently, it was contended that in the present case the award having been admittedly rendered by the President alone the same suffered from an inherent lack of jurisdiction and was, therefore, either non est or at least vitiated beyond repair.

5. On the first flush and de hors the material statutory provisions of the Act, the aforesaid contention had an initial modicum of plausibility. However, a close and in depth examination of the sections of the Act relevant to the point seem to be a clear pointer to the legislative intent that the pivot of the Tribunal is its President whilst its two assessors are wholly ancillary. Whilst the