R.F.A. No. 2125 of 2010 [1]

IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA

AT CHANDIGARH

R.F.A. No. 2125 of 2010 (O&M)

Date of decision: 15.11.2010

State of Haryana and another

.. Appellants

v.

Gram Panchayat of village Jharsa and another

.. Respondents

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH BINDAL

Present:

Mr. D. D. Gupta, Additional Advocate General, Haryana.

Mr. Amit Jain, Advocate for the land owners in

R.F.A. Nos. 2128 and 2129 of 2010.

Mr. Arun Walia, Advocate for Haryana Urban Development

Authority.

...

Rajesh Bindal J.

This order will dispose of R.F.A. Nos. 2125 to 2129 of 2010, as

common questions of law and facts are involved.

The State is in appeal seeking reduction in the amount of

compensation awarded to the land owners for the acquired land.

The facts have been extracted from R.F.A. No. 2125 of 2010.

Briefly, the facts of the case are that vide notification dated

7.11.2001, issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short,

`the Act'), State of Haryana acquired 1.10 acres of land, situated within the

revenue estate of village Jharsa, Tehsil and District Gurgaon for development and

utilisation thereof for master road and residential, commercial, institutional and

maintenance of open space area in Sectors 39 and 46, Gurgaon. The Land

Acquisition Collector (for short, `the Collector'), vide award dated 8.10.2003,

assessed the market value @ ` 12,00,000/- per acre for Chahi land; ` 9,60,000/-

per acre for Allabarani land; ` 8,40,000/- per acre for Bhood land and ` 7,20,000/-

per acre for Banjar kind of land. Dissatisfied with the award of the Collector, the

R.F.A. No. 2125 of 2010 [2]

land owners filed objections. On reference under Section 18 of the Act, the learned

court below assessed the market value of the acquired land @ ` 506/- per square

yard.

As far as merits of the case are concerned, I do not find any reason to

interfere with the impugned award considering the fact that the learned court

below had merely relied upon the judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Civil

Appeal No. 8609-8613 of 2001—Bhim Singh and others v. State of Haryana,

decided on 24.9.2003 produced by the State itself and determined the

compensation while awarding increase @ 12% per annum thereon for the time gap

in two notifications. The land in the present case was a small left out portion,

otherwise big chunk of land in the area was acquired earlier and the area in fact

had already been developed during the intervening period.

Not only this, there is no justifiable reason to condone huge delay of

238 days in filing the appeal. It is admitted that Law Department had issued

necessary instructions for filing the appeal on 11.2.2009, which were received in

the concerned office on 17.2.2009 and the limitation for filing the appeal was to

expire on or about 15.3.2009, but still the appeal was filed in this court on

17.11.2009. The only reason mentioned is that the delay occurred on account of

cumbersome procedure involved and administrative exigencies. As to what is the

cumbersome procedure has not been explained. The State cannot be permitted to

lift words from already decided case which in the context of the facts of a case

may have been used for condoning the delay in a particular case. It is required to

satisfactorily explain the reasons for condonation of delay, as each case depends

on its own facts. As to why cumbersome procedure has been evolved for filing the

appeals, it is for the authorities to consider. It is none else than the authorities

themselves who have devised such procedure.

Not only this, there is a delay of 112 days in re-filing the appeal.

The only ground mentioned is that due to administrative exigencies in removing

the objections, the delay of 112 day