The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation and application of section 18 of the Works of the Defence Act, 1903 (WODA) regarding the maintainability of a reference at the instance of the Defence Authorities.

ORDER : – Since pleadings are complete, therefore, with the consent of learned counsel for the parties, the matter is heard finally.

2. By means of this petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners are calling in question the validity of the order dated 26-7-2021 (Annexure-P/18) whereby the Reference Court rejected the preliminary objections raised by them.

3. For resolving the controversy involved in the instant case, the facts adumbrated in nutshell are that the petitioners owned 51.35 acres of land in Village Gadheri, District Jabalpur and over a part of the said land, a mining lease was granted by the State Government in favour of the petitioners to run a stone crusher which was the sole source of their income. In the year 2012, the Defence Authorities started pressurizing the petitioners, their staff and the labourers working on the said stone crusher to stop the activities of the stone crushing and gradually everybody was stopped to even step over the said land.

(3.1) Left with no option, the petitioners approached the High Court by filing a petition i.e. W. P. No. 21481/2013 making a prayer therein that the Defence Authorities be restrained from interfering/ disturbing the petitioners’ peaceful possession over the said land. In the meantime, a notification dated 6-5-2016 was published under section 3 of the Works of the Defence Act, 1903 (in short the ‘WODA’) imposing restrictions as mentioned under section 7(b) of the WODA w.e.f. 14-5-2016. However, in the above backdrop, vide order dated 30-8-2017, W. P. No. 21481/2013 was disposed of with directions to the respondents to take appropriate steps for determining the damages/compensation within a period of six months and the petitioners were also given the liberty to take action in accordance with law, if the compensation is not paid to them within the stipulated period.

(3.2) However, when the order passed in the above petition was not complied with then the petitioners filed first contempt petition i.e. Conc No. 1014/2018 which vide order dated 6-4-2018 was disposed of granting further six months’ time to the respondents for complying with the order passed in the W. P. No. 21481/2013.

(3.3) Despite completion of further period of six months when nothing was done then second contempt petition i.e. Conc No. 2959/2018 was filed by the petitioners and during pendency of the said contempt petition as many as four different awards ranging from Rs. 10.55 crores to Rs. 1.97 crores were passed. Since the award was passed, therefore, the High Court vide order dated 21-11-2019 dismissed the Conc No. 2959/2018 giving liberty to the petitioners to approach the appropriate forum in case their grievance is not redressed.

(3.4) Despite the undertaking of the counsel appeared for the Defence Authorities that a proposal was sent to the Defence Ministry for disbursement of the amount to the petitioners and for which three months’ time was sought for, but when the amount of compensation was not paid to the petitioners then they again filed third contempt petition i.e. Conc No. 708/2020 and in the said contempt petition, the presence of the Defence Authorities was ordered even through Video Conferencing to explain as to what steps have been taken to comply with the order passed by this Court. As the Defence Authorities wanted exemption from appearance even through Video Conferencing, therefore, they agreed to deposit the awarded amount on their own volition within six weeks before the Collector and pursuant thereto, the order of personal appearance of the Defence Authorities was recalled.

(3.5) During pendency of third contempt petition, a reference under section 18 of the WODA was moved by the Defence Authorities before the Collector, Jabalpur, who in a very mechanical manner even without dealing with the aspect of limitation and other issues pertaining to maintainability, referred the same to the District Court wherein the same was registered as MJC No.