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Land Acquisition Compensation: Jharkhand High Court Rules Same Document Used for Others Cannot Be Ignored
In a significant ruling on land acquisition compensation, the has set aside a Tribunal order that had rejected a compensation claim primarily because the claimant failed to produce a key document — the same document that had been relied upon to grant relief to other .
Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi, presiding over the single-judge bench, allowed an application for under and restored the matter for fresh adjudication.
A Long-Standing Land Dispute
The case concerns land measuring 18.19 acres in Mouza-Sewai, District Ramgarh, which was acquired in under the for the of the erstwhile , later merged into .
The original claimant, Tikendra Choudhary , claimed over the land based on , , and entries in revenue records. Despite the land being taken over by CCL and the claimant having been provided employment by the company, compensation was never paid.
In , Choudhary filed a reference under before the . However, the Tribunal dismissed the claim in , solely on the ground that the original claimant had failed to produce the relevant document.
The Tale of Two Claims
The substituted appellants — Choudhary’s legal heirs including Bhuneshwari Devi and others — challenged this dismissal. Their counsel, , argued that the very same Purcha document had been successfully relied upon by other claimants pertaining to the same and plot numbers.
In fact, in Reference Case Nos. 94 and 95 of 1993 , the Tribunal itself had allowed compensation to claimants like Shakuntala Devi and others based on the same document. The appellants therefore filed an application under to place these documents on record in the appellate stage.
Respondent CCL, through counsel , opposed the application, arguing lack of . However, the court noted that CCL fairly conceded that the land was indeed acquired and that one set of claimants had already been paid compensation.
High Court’s Intervention: No Can Defeat Justice
The court observed that the Tribunal’s rejection was based purely on a — the non-production of a document that had been considered in other proceedings concerning the same land. Justice Dwivedi held:
“It is well-settled that if a petition under is filed in course of the hearing, the said petition can be allowed if the relevancy and the ingredient of is made out in course of the hearing. The learned Tribunal has rejected the claim of the appellants/claimants only on the ground that the document () has not been produced, however, in the another set of claim application of raiyats relating to the same khata number and plot number, it has been allowed considering the marked in the Claim Case No.94 and 95 of 1993.”
The court further noted that CCL itself had provided employment to the original claimant, which strengthened the inference that the land had indeed been acquired from him.
Decision and Directions
Allowing the appeal, the High Court set aside the impugned judgment dated and restored Reference Case No. 07 of 1998 to the Tribunal’s file. The Tribunal was directed to decide the claim afresh, taking into account the additional documents permitted by the court.
The court also directed both parties to appear before the Tribunal on and to cooperate in the early disposal of the case without seeking unnecessary adjournments.
This ruling reinforces the principle that should not come in the way of , especially when similarly placed claimants have already been granted relief on identical evidence.
