The duty of the court to determine the validity of references, the consequences of a time-barred reference application, and the need for drastic action to prevent fraudulent references.

( 1 ) THIS appeal presented under Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act by the special land acquisition officer, hidkal dam project, hidkal, is a glaring example as to how even when no application seeking reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act was made and the award of the land acquisition officer have become final, the claimants manage to get references on applications made after long lapse of time with the connivance of land acquisition officers and how on such lime barred reference applications, awards are being passed overlooking long lapse of time after which references were received, which on the face of it disclose that the reference applications were barred by time.

( 2 ) BRIEF facts of the case, are these: 8 acres 3 guntas of land in sy. No. 66 of majli village of hukeri taluk, was acquired pursuant to a preliminary notification issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act on 3-5-1963. After the final notification, the land acquisition officer made an award on 8-3-1968. He awarded a compensation of Rs. 1,000-00 per acre. A reference under Section 18 of the act for enhancement of compensation, was received in the court of the civil judge, chikodi, after about 14 years, on 5-4-1982. The said application was registered as la. c No. 313 of 1982, in the court of the civil judge, chikodi. Before the civil judge's court, an objection was filed to the reference and one of the objection was that the reference application was lime barred and an issue to that effect was also framed by the learned civil judge. The learned judge negatived the objection of the appellant and proceeded to make an award, awarding a compensation at the rate of Rs. 9,000-00 per acre. Aggrieved by the said award, this appeal is presented. The. third ground raised in the appeal memorandum was that the learned civil judge ought to have dismissed the reference filed by the respondent on the ground that it was barred by time.

( 3 ) THIS matter was taken up for hearing on 5-2-1991. on the said date, the learned government advocate, elaborating the ground that the application was time barred, requested us to permit to raise the following two specific additional grounds: (1) the application for reference made by the respondent was not made on 18-4-1968 but was made some time after 1-11-1973 or round about the time when the reference was made on 5-4-1982 and consequently the reference application was barred by time. (2) even assuming that the reference application was made in time, the reference made by the land acquisition officer on 5-4-1982 was barred by limitation. Having regard to the glaring facts available from the records, we made the following order:"3. The learned Advocate submitted that the award of the land acquisition officer against which the reference application was made, was dated 8-3-1968 and though the reference application bears the date 18-4-1968, recent investigation and search has revealed that do such reference application was made till april, 1982 and it was actually made in april, 1982 after nearly fourteen years and the reference came to be made by the then land acquisition officer who entertained the ante dated application obviously with corrupt motive. He submitted that in a report sent by the present land acquisition officer, he has stated that the reference came to be made on account of the fraud played by the respondents and the then land acquisition officer, on the state.

( 4 ) IN view of the serious allegations made and in view of the fact that reference came to be made after 14 years, we examined the lower court records and in particular the reference application carefully. To our dismay, we found that on the court fee stamp affixed on the application, the word 'karnataka' is printed. It is on controvertible that with effect from 1-11-1956, on which date this state came into existence under the Provisions of the states reorganisation Act, 1956, the name of the state was "state of mysore" and