TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (2) TMI 1436
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....dalat can indeed form the foundation for exercising power Under Section 28A of the Act. 3. A notification came to be issued Under Section 4(1) of the Act on 21.03.1983 in respect of villages situated in Tehsil Dadri (Situation in District Ghaziabad) for planned industrial development contemplated by the Appellant. By the Award of the Land Acquisition Officer, which was passed on 28.11.1984, compensation was fixed for the lands belonging to the Respondents herein inter alia at the rate of Rs. 24,033 per bigha. The Respondents did not seek enhancement Under Section 18 of the Act. One Fateh Mohammed filed an application seeking reference against the Award dated 28.11.1984. The said reference was made over to a Lok Adalat. The reference is seen numbered as No. 6/02. The Lok Adalat passed an Award on 12.03.2016. We may set out the terms of the said award: Today, the matter has been placed before the Lok Adalat. Claimant Fateh Mohammed s/o. Ummed Khan with his learned Counsel Sri Jitendra Mathur and on behalf of Respondents the learned D.G.C. Civil are present in the court. The case file of this L.A.R. case has already been clubbed/consolidated with the files of other L.A.R. Cases, na....
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....ection 28A of the Act. The Additional District Magistrate rejected the applications on the basis that the Award dated 12.03.2016 passed by the Lok Adalat was on the basis of the compromise. This led to the writ petitions being filed by the Respondents before the High Court. It is in the said writ petitions that the impugned judgments have been passed by the High Court finding that the Award of the Lok Adalat would be deemed to be decree of the Civil Court and, consequently, the Respondents would be entitled to invoke Section 28A of the Act. 5. We have heard Shri Anil Kaushik, learned Counsel for the Appellant. We have also heard Shri Dhruv Mehta and Shri V.K. Shukla, learned Senior Counsel on behalf of the Respondents. 6. Learned Counsel for the Appellant would point out that Section 28A is not available to be applied when there is no determination by the Court in terms of the Act. He referred us to the definition of the word 'Court' in the Act to contend that what Section 28A contemplates is an Award passed by such a Court. Lok Adalats, it is his contention are constituted Under Section 19 of the 1987 Act. They have no adjudicatory or judicial function. The object of the....
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....nt out, in the first place, that a perusal of the Award by Lok Adalat would show that it would be wholly unfair on the part of the Appellant to wriggle out of a rate which, in fact, was based on a decision of the High Court (apparently the decision in Mangu and others. It is further pointed out by Shri Dhruv Mehta, learned Senior Counsel, that full effect must be given to the legal fiction. The oft quoted admonition that the Courts must not allow their imagination to be boggled by the prospect of stretching a legal fiction to its logical culmination was invoked. In other words, it is the contention of Shri Dhruv Mehta that given the fact that an Award passed by the Lok Adalat is to be treated as a decree, it matters little that what led to the Award is not analogous to the procedure that is ordinarily contemplated in a reference Under Section 18 of the Act. The fiction must have full play. Thus, being a decree of a Civil Court, the Award of the Lok Adalat would provide firm foundation for similarly circumstanced persons to claim benefit of Section 28A. In this regard, he would point out that the Court must not be oblivious to the grand command of equality to achieve which sublime g....
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.... criminal or revenue court and includes any tribunal or any other authority constituted under any law for the time being in force to exercise judicial or quasi-judicial functions. Section 2(d) defines Lok Adalat as meaning a Lok Adalat organized under Chapter VI. 12. Chapter VI contains Sections 19 to 22. Section 19(1) contemplates Lok Adalats being organised at such intervals and places and for exercising such jurisdiction and for such areas as is thought fit by the relevant bodies mentioned therein. Section 19(2) is significant as it provides for the composition of the Lok Adalat. It reads as follows: (2) Every Lok Adalat organised for an area shall consist of such number of: (a) Serving or retired judicial officers and (b) Other persons, of the area as may be specified by the State Authority or the District Authority or the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee or the High Court Legal Services Committee, or as the case may be, the Taluk Legal Services Committee, organising such Lok Adalats. Sub-section (3) goes on to deal with the experience and qualification of the persons mentioned in Clause (b). Sub-section (5) is again relevant as it indicates the jurisdiction ....
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....d other legal principles. (5) Where no award is made by the Lok Adalat on the ground that no compromise or settlement could be arrived at between the parties, the record of the case shall be returned by it to the court, from which the reference has been received Under Sub-section (1) for disposal in accordance with law. (6) Where no award is made by the Lok Adalat on the ground that no compromise or settlement could be arrived at between the parties, in a matter referred to in Sub-section (2), that Lok Adalat shall advice the parties to seek remedy in a court. (7) Where the record of the case is returned Under Sub-section (5) to the court, such court shall proceed to deal such reference Under Sub-section (1). 4. Section 21 provides for the final decision by the Lok Adalat and it reads as follows: Section 21. Award of Lok Adalat (1) Every award of the Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a decree of a civil court or, as the case may be, an order of any other court and where a compromise or settlement has been arrived at, by a Lok Adalat in a case referred to Under Sub-section (1) of Section 20, the court-fee paid in such case shall be refunded in the manner provided under th....
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....on 18 provides for a right with a person dissatisfied with the amount inter alia awarded by the Land Acquisition Officer to seek enhancement, Section 28A contemplates situations where a person has not availed of the right Under Section 18 but any other person has utilized the provisions of Section 18 and obtained an enhancement. Other conditions obtaining in Section 28A being present, a person who has not filed application Under Section 18 inter alia is entitled to claim redetermination of the compensation. Section 28A may be noticed: 28A. Re-determination of the amount of compensation on the basis of the award of the Court.-(1) where in an award under this part, the court allows to the applicant any amount of compensation in excess of the amount awarded by the collector Under Section 11, the persons interested in all the other land covered by the same notification Under Section 4, Sub-section (1) and who are also aggrieved by the award of the Collector may, notwithstanding that they had not made an application to the Collector Under Section 18, by written application to the Collector within three months from the date of the award of the Court require that the amount of compensat....
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....ssed by the Lok Adalat was found to be by consent. In the decision reported in Namdev v. State of Maharashtra, a Division Bench of the Bombay High Court on 03.11.2014 only notes that the Award passed by the Lok Adalat has a force of decree and an application Under Section 28A can be founded on such an Award. It is further stated that this view has been confirmed by the High Court in number of matters. 20. A learned Single Judge of the Kerala High Court in the decision reported in Thankamma Mathew v. State of Kerala and Anr. (2017) 2 KLT 1023 did consider the provisions of the 1987 Act in greater detail. The learned Single Judge was guided by the scope and effect of the deeming provision Under Section 21 of the 1987 Act. He referred to the judgment of this Court reported in K.N. Govindan Kutty Menon v. C.D. Shaji (2012) 2 SCC 51. 21. Primarily based on the award being a deemed decree of a Civil Court, he found that Section 28A applies in all cases where in an Award, the Court allows to the applicant any compensation in excess of what is awarded by the collector and that there is no difference between a decree passed by the Civil Court and the Award of the Lok Adalat in view of the....
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....e to say that that eventuality (i.e. entitlement of a third party to apply for re-determination of its own compensation after passing of the award by the Lok Adalat) inevitably follows as a corollary or consequence from such award. xxx xxx xxx 20. If this consequence, namely, the award of Lok Adalat having to be treated as an award of the reference court under Part III, does not follow as an inevitable sequitur, to come to such consequence the legal fiction contained in Section 21 of the LSA Act will have to be actually extended to import two other fictions, namely, that the award of Lok Adalat should be deemed (i) "a decree of the court which has referred the matter to the Lok Adalat", and (ii) "a decree passed under Part III of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894". That, we are afraid, is impermissible under the law stated by the Supreme Court in Sadan K. Bormal's case (supra). It would be an artificial extension of the legal fiction and not a necessary corollary of the original statutory fiction; it would be extending the original fiction beyond its statutory purpose. 22. The Court distinguished the judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Singirkonda Surekha v. G.V. Shar....
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....yond the shadow of any doubt that the jurisdiction of the Lok Adalat Under Section 20 is to facilitate a settlement of disputes between the parties in a case. It has no adjudicatory role. It cannot decide a lis. All that it can do is to bring about a genuine compromise or settlement. Sub-section (4) of Section 20 is important insofar as the law giver has set out the guiding principles for a Lok Adalat. The principles are justice, equality, fair play and other legal principles. The significance of this provision looms large when the Court bears in mind the scheme of Section 28A of the Act. 27. The scheme of Section 28A of the Act is unmistakably clear from its very opening words. What Section 28A contemplates is a redetermination of compensation under an award passed under Part III. Part III takes in Section 23. Section 23 deals with the matters to be taken into consideration. Various aspects including the market value on the date of the notification Under Section 4(1) are indicated. What we wish to emphasise is that elements of Section 23 are not in consonance as such with the guiding principles set out in Section 19(4) of the '1987 Act' which are to guide a Lok Adalat. Wh....
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.... judgment of this Court in P.T. Thomas v. Thomas Job AIR 2005 SC 3575. 29. We see no merit in this argument. What has been laid down by this Court may be noticed in this regard in the aforesaid judgment: In Sailendra Narayan Bhanja Deo v. The State of Orissa AIR 1956 SUPREME COURT 346, (CONSTITUTION BENCH) held as follows: A judgment by consent or default is as effective an estoppel between the parties as a judgment whereby the court exercises its mind on a contested case. (1895) 1 Ch. 37 & 1929 AC 482, Rel. on; In-'In re South American and Mexican Co., Ex. Parte Bank of England', (1895) 1 Ch 37(C), it has been held that a judgment by consent or default is as effective an estoppel between the parties as a judgment whereby the Court exercises its mind on a contested case. Upholding the judgment of Vaughan Williams, J Lord Herschell said at page 50: The truth is, a judgment by consent is intended to put a stop to litigation between the parties just as much as is a judgment which results from the decision of the Court after the matter has been fought out to the end. And I think it would be very mischievous if one were not to give a fair and reasonable interpretation....
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....057) If the words of the statute are in themselves precise and unambiguous, then no more can be necessary than to expound those words in their natural and ordinary sense. The words themselves alone do, in such case, best declare the intention of the lawgiver. It is a cardinal principle of construction of a statute that when the language of the statute is plain and unambiguous, then the court must give effect to the words used in the statute and it would not be open to the courts to adopt a hypothetical construction on the ground that such construction is more consistent with the alleged object and policy of the Act. In Kirkness v. John Hudson & Co. Ltd. [(1955) 2 All ER 345 : 1955 AC 696 : (1955) 2 WLR 1135] Lord Reid pointed out as to what is the meaning of "ambiguous" and held that: (All ER p. 366 C-D) A provision is not ambiguous merely because it contains a word which in different contexts is capable of different meanings. It would be hard to find anywhere a sentence of any length which does not contain such a word. A provision is, in my judgment, ambiguous only if it contains a word or phrase which in that particular context is capable of having more than one meaning. ....
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....eficial provision, it would cause great injustice if a literal interpretation is given to the expression "had not made an application to the Collector Under Section 18" in Section 28-A of the Act. The aforesaid expression would mean that if the landowner has made an application for reference Under Section 18 and that reference is entertained and answered. In other words, it may not be permissible for a landowner to make a reference and get it answered and then subsequently make another application when some other person gets the reference answered and obtains a higher amount. In fact in Pradeep Kumari case [ (1995) 2 SCC 736] the three learned Judges, while enumerating the conditions to be satisfied, whereafter an application Under Section 28-A can be moved, had categorically stated (SCC p. 743, para 10) "the person moving the application did not make an application to the Collector Under Section 18". The expression "did not make an application", as observed by this Court, would mean, did not make an effective application which had been entertained by making the reference and the reference was answered. When an application Under Section 18 is not entertained on the ground of limita....
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.... evidenced in the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Act would not only reduce the burden of arrears of work in regular courts, but would also take justice to the doorsteps of the poor and the needy and make justice quicker and less expensive. In the case on hand, the courts below erred in holding that only if the matter was one which was referred by a civil court it could be a decree and if the matter was referred by a criminal court it will only be an order of the criminal court and not a decree Under Section 21 of the Act. The Act does not make out any such distinction between the reference made by a civil court and a criminal court. There is no restriction on the power of Lok Adalat to pass an award based on the compromise arrived at between the parties in a case referred by a criminal court Under Section 138 of the NI Act, and by virtue of the deeming provision it has to be treated as a decree capable of execution by a civil court. In this regard, the view taken in Subhash Narasappa Mangrule [ (2009) 3 Mah LJ 857] and Valarmathi Oil Industries [AIR 2009 Mad 180] supports this contention and we fully accept the same. 34. Thereafter the Court concluded as follows: 26. Fr....
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....mbay v. Pandurang Vinayak AIR 1953 SC 244 : 1953 Cri. LJ 1094], and after ascertaining this, the Court is to assume all those facts and consequences which are incidental or inevitable corollaries to the giving effect to the fiction. [East End Dwellings Co. Ltd. v. Finsbury Borough Council, 1952 AC 109 : (1951) 2 All ER 587 (HL); CIT v. S. Teja Singh AIR 1959 SC 352] But in so construing the fiction it is not to be extended beyond the purpose for which it is created [Bengal Immunity Co. Ltd. v. State of Bihar AIR 1955 SC 661; CIT v. Amarchand N. Shroff AIR 1963 SC 1448], or beyond the language of the Section by which it is created. [CIT v. Shakuntala AIR 1966 SC 719; Mancheri Puthusseri Ahmed v. Kuthiravattam Estate Receiver, (1996) 6 SCC 185 : AIR 1997 SC 208] It cannot also be extended by importing another fiction. [CIT v. Moon Mills Ltd. AIR 1966 SC 870] The principles stated above are 'well-settled'. [State of W.B. v. Sadan K. Bormal, (2004) 6 SCC 59 : 2004 SCC (Cri.) 1739 : AIR 2004 SC 3666] A legal fiction may also be interpreted narrowly to make the statute workable. [Nandkishore Ganesh Joshi v. Commr., Municipal Corporation of Kalyan and Dombivali, (2004) 11 SCC 417 ....
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....ined in Section 21 by which the Award is treated as if it were a decree is intended only to clothe the Award with enforceability. In view of the provisions of Section 21 by which it is to be treated as a decree which cannot be challenged, undoubtedly, by way of an appeal in view of the express provisions forbidding it, unless it is set aside in other appropriate proceedings, it becomes enforceable. The purport of the law giver is only to confer it with enforceability in like manner as if it were a decree. Thus, the legal fiction that the Award is to be treated as a decree goes no further. 38. The further argument of Shri Dhruv Mehta is that apart from the Award of the Lok Adalat being treated as a decree, it is also capable of being treated as an order of the Court, as the case may be. In this regard, we have already noticed the scheme of the 1987 Act. We have considered the definition of the word 'Case' and the word 'Court'. We have also noticed the provisions of Section 19(5) and Section 20(1). The conspectus of these provisions would yield the following result: The Lok Adalat as constituted Under Section 19(2) would have jurisdiction inter alia to determine an....
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....ed as an order passed by the Court Under Section 28A of the Act. We will answer this question after considering the requirement Under Section 28A now. 41. Section 28A, undoubtedly, has been introduced by parliament in the year 1984 to bring solace to those land owners or persons having interest in land to claim the just amount due to them even though they have omitted to file application Under Section 18 of the Act seeking enhancement. In fact, in Jose Antonio Cruz Dos R. Rodriguese and Anr. v. Land Acquisition Collector and Anr. (1996) 6 SCC 746, this Court, in a Bench of three learned Judges, has held that the period of limitation of three months for invoking Section 28A of the Act would commence from the date of passing of the order by the original court answering the reference Under Section 18 and not from the date of the appellate court. In Union of India and Anr. v. Hansoli Devi and Ors. (supra), the Constitution Bench of this Court has held that the right Under Section 28A is available even to the person who has unsuccessfully filed a time barred application Under Section 18, the fact that a land owner has received the compensation awarded by the Land Acquisition Officer wi....
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.... Act'. The Court is not the same as a Lok Adalat. 46. The Award passed by the Lok Adalat in itself without anything more is to be treated by the deeming fiction to be a decree. It is not a case where a compromise is arrived at Under Order XXIII of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, between the parties and the court is expected to look into the compromise and satisfy itself that it is lawful before it assumes efficacy by virtue of Section 21. Without anything more, the award passed by Lok Adalat becomes a decree. The enhancement of the compensation is determined purely on the basis of compromise which is arrived at and not as a result of any decision of a 'Court' as defined in the Act. 47. An Award passed by the Lok Adalat is not a compromise decree. An Award passed by the Lok Adalat without anything more, is to be treated as a decree inter alia. We would approve the view of the learned Single Judge of the Kerala High Court in P.T. Thomas (supra). An award unless it is successfully questioned in appropriate proceedings, becomes unalterable and non-violable. In the case of a compromise falling Under Order XXIII Code of Civil Procedure, it becomes a duty of the Court to ....