and utilization of land as residential institutional and commercial Sector 20-

A at Faridabad”.

3. Aggrieved of the same, the appellants-landowners filed petition under Section 18 of the 1894 Act, however, the same was dismissed by the learned Reference Court vide order dated 04.12.2009 on the ground that the award under Section 11 in the case in hand was passed on 29.06.1998, whereas the application for making reference was made by the appellants- landowners on 27.01.2003 i.e. after a period of more than 4 years. The relevant paragraph No.15 of the impugned award is extracted hereunder:-

“In the present case, LAC had announced its Award on 29.6.1998.

Application for making reference was made by the petitioners before LAC on 27.1.2003 i.e. more than four years after the award. Though there is nothing to suggest that whether any of the petitioners was present at the time of announcement of the Award by the LAC or whether they were represented by anybody but there is no evidence worth name that when the petitioners acquired knowledge about the award of LAC, as it is not pleaded in the petition at all that when and how the petitioners came to know about the award of LAC. Though an applica