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HIGH COURT OF DELHI
JUDGMENT
SHARVAN JAGNANI ..... Petitioner
For the Petitioner : Ms Richa Oberoi For the Respondent No.1 : Mr Dev P. Bhardwaj with Mr Priyank Khattar
For the Respondent No.2 : Mr Siddharth Panda
HON'BLE MR JUSTICE SANJEEV SACHDEVA
1. The petitioner seeks the benefit of Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the 2013 Act’) which came into effect on 01.01.2014. A declaration is sought to the effect that the acquisition proceeding, which is the subject matter of the present writ petition, ought to be deemed to have lapsed in view of Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act. 2015:DHC:9118-DB
2. The Award under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the 1894 Act’) was made vide Award No.06/2005-06/DC(N-W) dated 12.07.2005 and it was in respect of, inter alia, the petitioner’s land comprised in Khasra No. 57/1 (1-0) measuring 1 bigha in village Pehladpur Bangar.
3. The stand of the learned counsel for the respondents is that the possession of the land measuring 3 bighas and 16 biswas in the above mentioned khasra has been taken over by the land acquiring agency. However, the learned counsel for the petitioner states that the present petition is not concerned with the said land measuring 3 bighas and 16 biswas of the aforesaid khasra, but is in respect of the balance 1 bigha in the said khasra, of which, admittedly, physical possession had not be taken. The learned counsel for the respondents contend that the physical possession of the said 1 bigha of land, in respect of which the present petition has been filed, could not be taken because of the operation of a stay order passed in WP(C) 13568/2005. It is an admitted position that the stay order continued to operate till 09.07.2007 when the said writ petition was dismissed. Thereafter, there was a stay granted by the Supreme Court in SLP (Civil) No.12585/2007, which continued to operate till 11.02.2015, when liberty was granted to the petitioner to file the present petition.
4. This aspect of the matter concerning the submission that possession could not be taken because of the operation of the stay order and that in such a situation the respondents should not be prejudiced, was considered by this Court in the case of Jagjit Singh & Ors. vs. UOI & Ors: W.P.(C) 2806/2004 and other connected matters which were decided by this Court on 27.05.2014. In that decision, this Court observed as under:-
10. Furthermore, it would be instructive to refer to the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Pandurang Vinayak (supra) which has been relied upon by Mr Sethi, the learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners. In that decision the purpose and meaning of a statutory fiction was being considered. While doing so, the Supreme Court referred to an English decision in the case of East End Dwelling Co. Ltd. v. Finsbury Borough Council: (1952) A.C. 109 and in particular to an observation of Lord Asquith which was to the following effect:- “If you are bidden to treat an imaginary state of affairs as real, you must surely, unless prohibited from doing so, also imagine as real the consequences and incidents which, if the putative, state of affairs had in fact existed, must inevitably have flowed from or accompanied it.....The statue says that you must imagine a certain state of affairs; it does not say that having done so, you must cause or permit your imagination to boggle when it comes to the inevitable corollaries of that state of affairs."
11. Following the above observation, it is obvious that the deeming provision of section 24(2) is a legal fiction which is a created and an imagined situation. We ought not to be concerned with the inevitable corollaries that may flow out of it unless there is a clear prohibition in the statute itself. Once the state of affairs is imagined as real, the consequences and instances would also have to be imagined as real. Therefore, the fact that the possession could not have been taken by the respondents because of interim orders of the Court, would not in any way prevent this Court from imagining the state of affairs stipulated in Section 24(2) of the new Act. The only conditions that are required for the deeming provisions to be triggered are that the award must have been made five years or more prior to the commencement of the new Act and that either physical possession of the land has not been taken or that the compensation has not been paid. In fact in these writ petitions all the conditions stands satisfied. Therefore, the contention of the learned counsel for the respondent cannot be accepted.”
5. As a consequence, it has to be held that the respondents did not take physical possession of the subject land. With regard to the element of compensation, it is an admitted position that compensation has not been paid in respect of the said land. The Award was also made more than five years prior to the commencement of the 2013 Act. Therefore, all the ingredients of Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court and this Court in the following decisions stand satisfied:- (1) Pune Municipal Corporation and Anr v. Harakchand Misirimal Solanki and Ors: (2014) 3 SCC 183; (2) Union of India and Ors v. Shiv Raj and Ors: (2014) 6 SCC 564; (3) Sree Balaji Nagar Residential Association v. State of Tamil Nadu and Ors: Civil Appeal No. 8700/2013 decided on 10.09.2014; (4) Surender Singh v. Union of India & Others: WP(C) 2294/2014 decided on 12.09.2014 by this Court; and (5) Jagjit Singh & Ors. vs. UOI & Ors: W.P.(C) 2806/2004 decided on 27.05.2014.
6. As a result, the petitioner is entitled to a declaration that the said acquisition proceedings initiated under the 1894 Act in respect of the subject land are deemed to have lapsed. It is so declared.
7. The writ petition is allowed to the aforesaid extent. There shall be no order as to costs.
BADAR DURREZ AHMED, J SANJEEV SACHDEVA, J NOVEMBER 03, 2015 SR