Co-Owners Cannot Be Denied Enhanced Compensation On Hyper-Technical Ground Of Not Objecting To Award: Supreme Court
The Court noted that land losers cannot be deprived of their legitimate compensation to which they are entitled.
The Supreme Court has observed that co-sharers who lost their land to state acquisition cannot be deprived of their legitimate compensation on hyper-technical grounds, even if they remained inactive during initial legal proceedings.
It was held that while these individuals may have been "ignorant of prosecuting the cause" and failed to file timely applications under Section 18 or Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, they are still entitled to the same enhanced compensation awarded to other co-sharers who did challenge the award.
The Bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Prasanna B Varale observed, “…We are of the considered view that instead of keeping these matters pending, they can be disposed of on a short issue, namely, on the ground that there being no dispute to the fact that acquisition of petitioners land had ended in an award being passed in favour of one of the co-sharers of the land and other co- sharers, who being ignorant of prosecuting the cause, did not challenge the award passed either by filing an application under Section 18 of the Act or no application was filed under Section 28A of the Act after the appeal came to be disposed of in favour of one of the co-owners enhancing the compensation they cannot be denied compensation for the lands lost by them to which they are legitimately entitled to and same cannot be denied on hyper technical grounds.”
Senior Advocates Gagan Gupta and Manoj Swarup appeared for the Appellant, while Senior AAG Lokesh Sinhal appeared for the Respondents.
Factual Background
The Appellants herein, who are the land losers, filed the petition challenging an order passed by the Punjab & Haryana High Court, whereunder it came to be held that the co-sharers who did not file objections to the award passed under Section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (‘the Act’) and also had failed to move the Court under Section 28A of the Act within the limitation, was erroneous.
It was also held in the Impugned Order that co-sharers/appellants were not entitled to maintain an execution petition and seek for a direction to the judgment debtor (for whose benefit the land was acquired) to divert payment of compensation on the ground that one of co-sharer had approached the reference court and an award has been passed and necessarily the award so passed would enure to the benefit of all other co-sharers.
The High Court of Punjab & Haryana, through the impugned order, had ruled in favor of the State of Haryana by holding that execution petitions filed by co-sharers who were not parties to the original reference proceedings were not maintainable. The High Court further determined that awards previously passed in the Lok Adalat were without jurisdiction, and any settlements reached were non-binding on the State due to being based on a misconception or misrepresentation of law. Consequently, after the High Court set aside the executing court's partial allowance of these claims and refused interest, the aggrieved land losers filed the present appeals before the Supreme Court.
Observations of the Court
The Court said, “There will be naturally a heartburn and on account of non-prosecuting their cause, the land losers cannot be deprived of their legitimate compensation to which they are entitled to…The preliminary notification which came to be issued in the year 2002, till the disposal of the appeal in 2011/2015, these appellants were waiting in the wings to receive compensation and did not raise their little finger or pursue their grievance before any authority. It is this inaction on their part and not pursuing their legitimate right in appropriate forum, which would persuade us to hold that these appellants would not be entitled for the relief of interest for the whole of this period. Thus, the main question would be, whether any interest should be awarded? if so, to what extent or what period?”
It was observed that the determination of compensation ended in 2011. Instead of filing an application under Section 28A of the Act, the appellants filed an execution petition in the trial court in 2015 based on a previous award passed for their lands. The Court noted that this action indicated the appellants woke up from their "slumber" to agitate their rights, and they waited from that year onward to receive compensation for their acquired lands. While the past awards showed they related to the petitioners' land, they did not specify the actual share of each claimant. Finally, the Court pointed out that these appellants did not receive any enhancement because they failed to file a Reference Petition under Section 18 of the Act.
“We are of the considered view that apart from the compensation, the appellants would be entitled to the interest for a period of five years to be reckoned from today backwards and we make it explicitly clear that the appellants are not entitled for any interest for any other period. We would also hasten to add that the appellants would be entitled to all other consequential benefits which flow from award of compensation and the respondent(s) authorities shall compute the compensation as has been determined by the award passed under Section 18 of the Act and/or modified by the High Court or this Court in exercise of appellate jurisdiction,” the Court observed.
The Court directed that the said determination shall be made by the authorities expeditiously and at any rate within an outer limit of three months from the date of this order, and the amounts so determined shall be disbursed within an outer limit of three months for such determination with interest as specified therein.
Accordingly, the Court disposed of the appeals.
Cause Title: Ramphal & Ors. v. Haryana State Industrial And Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited & Ors. [SLP (Crl.) No. 11600-11601 of 2025]
Appearances:
Appellants: Senior Advocates Gagan Gupta and Manoj Swarup, with Dinesh Verma, Subhasish Bhowmick (AOR), Jasbir Singh Malik, Prachi Sohi, and Pooja Devi, Kapil Kumar, Varun Punia (AOR), Karan Dewan, Aanchal Jain (AOR), and Rajiv Sethi. Vanshaja Shukla (AOR), Parmanand Yadav, Siddhant Yadav, Jitesh Malik, Jatin Hooda, Shamindra Kadiyan, Abhaya Nath Das, Swagoti Batchas, Soumya Kundu, Gourav Dixit, Satish Kumar (AOR), Surinder Singh, Arvind Gupta (AOR), Mohit Bidhuri, Kanav Bhardwaj, Sanchar Anand, Devendra Singh (AOR), Aman Kumar Thakur, Rajat Rathee, Pratimesh, Aman Bhardwaj, Vibhuti Sushant Gupta, Satish Kumar Gupta, Narender Kumar Verma (AOR), Ananta Prasad Mishra (AOR), Jasbir Singh, Saurabh Gupta, Ankit Swarup (AOR), Neelmani Pant, and Yash Singhal, Satish Kumar Gupta, Vikrant S Verma, Aryan Rachh, Ankit Goel (AOR), Ranbir Singh Yadav (AOR), Prateek Yadav, Anzu K. Varkey, Shivika Nehra, Parveen Kumar, Mohammed Shahrukh, Puran Mal Saini, Dalganjan Singh, Siddharth Mittal (AOR), Abhijeet Varshney, Sumit Kumar Sharma, and Shilpa G Mittal.
Respondents: Senior Additional Advocate General Lokesh Sinhal, with Advocates Akshay Amritanshu (AOR), Nikunj Gupta, Ishika Gupta, Sarthak Arya, Sarthak Srivastava, Mayur Goyal, Seema Sindhu, Abhay Nair, Harsh Kumar Singh, Vijay Chandra Jha (AOR), Kapil Hooda, Kaushal Chandra Jha, Tushant, and Akhilendra Nath.