Full Text
HIGH COURT OF DELHI
W.P.(C) 6451/2015
RAJ SINGH & ANR. ..... Petitioners
Through: Mr. Rajesh Gupta, Advocate with Mr. Harpreet Singh, Advocate.
Through: Ms. Saroj Bidawat, Advocate for R-1/UOI.
Mr. Dhanesh Relan, Standing Counsel with Mr. Rajeev Jha and
Ms. Mrinalini Sharma, Advocates for DDA.
Mr. Yeeshu Jain, Standing Counsel with Ms. Jyoti Tyagi, Advocate for
LAC/L&B.
20.03.2019 Dr. S. Muralidhar, J.:
JUDGMENT
1. The prayers in the present petition read as under: “(i) Issue a writ, of certiorari and/or any other writ, order or direction of the similar nature declaring the entire acquisition with respect of khasra no.53/21(141.[6] sq.yards) and 54/16 (346 sq. yards) situated in the revenue Estate of Village Karala Delhi, having lapsed and further quashing the impugned notification No. F.11(19)/01/L&B/LA/2011[2] dated 21.03.2003 issued under section 4, Notification No. F.ll(19)/04/L&B/LA/28199 dated 19.03.2004 issued under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and the Award no. 22/2005-06 with respect to khasra 2019:DHC:1675-DB no.53/21(141.[6] sq. yards) and 54/16 (346 sq.yards)situated in the revenue estate of village Karala, Delhi. AND
(ii) Issue a writ of mandamus and/or any other writ, order and direction of the similar nature issuing directions to the Respondents not to disturb or hinder the physical possession and enjoyment of the Petitioners with respect to 9Bighal2Biswas of Land comprised in khasra no.53/21(141.[6] sq. yards) and 54/16 (346 sq. yards) situated in the revenue estate of village Karala, Delhi.
(iii) Pass any other or further writ, order or direction which this
2. At the outset, counsel for the Petitioner states that as far as the prayer in relation to the Khasra No. 54/16 (346 sq.yards) is concerned, the said prayer does not survive in view of the order passed by this Court on 30th May 2016 in W.P. (C) 6812/2015. He accordingly, withdraws the prayer in relation to Khasra No. 54/16. Correspondingly since the relief sought by Petitioner No.2 is only qua Khasra No. 54/16, this petition as far as Petitioner NO.2 is concerned is dismissed.
3. The narration in the petition as far as the claim with regard to Khasra NO. 53/21 is concerned shows that the original owner, Shri Rajesh Jain, sold the land to one Shri Surinder Singh on 19th January 2000. In turn Surinder Singh sold 141.[6] sq. yards falling in Khasra No. 53/21 to Petitioner No.1 on 11th August 2003. The documents annexed with the petition in support of the above plea as P-5 C/1 is in fact is an unregistered General Power of Attorney ( GPA) dated 11th August 2003 accompanied by an agreement to sell, affidavit, receipt, possession letter and deed of Will all of the same date. The above documents are not valid documents of title. They have been executed after a notification was issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 („LAA‟) on 21st March 2003 in respect of that very land. Accordingly they would be invalid even in terms of the Delhi Lands (Restriction on Transfer) Act, 1972.
4. The above notification under Section 4 of the LAA was for the public purpose of the Rohini Residential Scheme. This was followed by a declaration under Section 6 LAA issued on 19th March 2004. The Award No. 22/2005-06 was passed, thereafter, on 2nd January 2006.
5. According to the Petitioner, since he still has the possession of the land in question and no compensation has been tendered or deposited in the Court, he is entitled to relief under Section 24 (2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (the „2013 Act‟).
6. In the reply filed by the LAC on 31st January 2018 in the present petition, it is stated in paras 4 and 5 as under: “4. That the present writ petition is liable to be dismissed as petitioner is not the recorded owner of the subject land and have filed the writ petition on basis of GPA/.Agreement to Sell/ Affidavit etc. which changed multiple hands and the said documents does not confer any right, title or interest on the petitioner as these documents are not the admissible mode of transfer of lands.
5. That the present writ petition is liable to be dismissed as the actual vacant physical possession of the lands measuring (2-04) out of the khasra number 53//21 (4-09) left out (2-05) was taken on the spot on 23.2.2007 on the spot and handed over to the requisition agency on the spot. The land land measuring (4-13) out of khaasra number 54//16 (4-16), left out (0-03) which became the subject matter of the present writ petition was also taken on 21.2.2007 with the help of demolition squad and the petitioner did not challenge the same at the relevant time hence the present petition is highly barred by limitation. The contention of the petitioner that they were not offered the compensation is not tenable as they never submitted any document with the office of the answering respondent and/or approach to claim right for seeking compensation for 141.[6] and 346 sq. yards respectively of the subject land. It is submitted that the compensation however could not be paid as revenue record reflects that against the khasra number 53//21, there are various recorded owners and against khasra number 54//16, Giani Ram S/o Ratan Lal have been shown as recorded owner.”
7. It is also mentioned in para 6 that after the passing of the Award on 2nd January 2006, the recorded owners did not turn up to claim compensation and apparently sold the lands through unauthorized modes of transfer. Furthermore, it was also ascertained that the possession of the land was taken way back 2006-07 itself. It must be noted that till date no rejoinder has been filed to the above counter affidavit of the LAC.
8. The DDA filed a separate counter affidavit on 18th December 2015 where inter alia it was stated that the possession of the land was taken by the LAC and handed over to the DDA on 23rd February 2007 before being further transferred to the Rohini Residential Scheme on 18th July 2007. Copies of the possession proceedings have been enclosed. Till date no rejoinder affidavit has been filed to the counter affidavit of the DDA either.
9. As far as the question of possession is concerned with respect to the acquisition made for the Rohini Residential Scheme, the matter stands decided against the Petitioner by the orders passed by the Supreme Court in the Interlocutory Applications (IAs) in SLP (C) 16385-88/2012 titled Rahul Gupta v. DDA. In the order dated 18th October 2016 in the said matter, the Supreme Court vacated all the interim orders passed by this Court and granted liberty to the DDA to produce the copy of the said order “in all matters pertaining to the Land Acquisition relating to the Rohini Residential Scheme, pending before the High Court for vacation of similar interim directions.” It was also further made clear as under: “It is made clear that in case the applicants have re-entered possession or otherwise, they shall vacate the said land and hand over its possession forthwith to the Delhi Development Authority, failing which it shall be assumed to be in possession of the Delhi Development Authority, after the expiry of ten days from the passing of the instant order. With the aforesaid directions, these interlocutory applicants stand disposed of.”
10. Faced with the above situation, counsel for the Petitioner is unable to dispute that he cannot claim that he continues to remain in possession of the land in question. However counsel for the Petitioner presses his claim under Section 24 (2) of the 2013 Act on the basis that compensation has still not been paid tendered or paid to the Petitioner.
11. As already noticed in Para 5 of the counter affidavit of the LAC, it was stated that compensation could not be paid as the revenue record that reflected against khasra No.53//21 stated, “there are various recorded owners.” Further, as already noticed the documents through which the Petitioner seeks to claim ownership are of doubtful validity and do not confer any title.
12. During the course of the submissions today, learned counsel for the Petitioners submitted that since there was a dispute as to the ownership of the land in question, the matter went before the Additional District Magistrate (ADM), in which according to him the ownership of the Petitioner in relation to the said land has been recognized. In this regard, it is noted that the counsel for the Petitioner on two occasions i.e. on 18th February 2019 and 6th March 2019 sought time to bring those documents before this Court. However, till date those documents have not been produced. Further, it is not clear how an ADM can possibly decide questions of title to land.
13. Be that as it may, there are other difficulties in the way of the Petitioner getting the relief under Section 24 (2) of 2013 Act. The first is that the GPA and the Will produced by the Petitioner refer to the property in question being part of an abadi known as „Tirthankar Nagar, Jain Colony, Delhi‟ which is an unauthorized colony and which figures at serial No. 88 in the list of unauthorized colonies, put up on the website of the Department of Urban Development, Government of NCT of Delhi awaiting provisional regularization. In cases where lands are forming part of an unauthorized colony awaiting regularization, this Court has been consistently declining the reliefs under Section 24 (2) of the 2013 Act. The rationale as explained by this Court in Mool Chand v. Union of India 2019 (173) DRJ 595 (DB) is as under: “48. The third aspect of the case is that the Petitioner admits that the land in question is part of an unauthorised colony. The very basis for seeking regularisation of an unauthorised colony is that it is located on land which belongs either to the public or to some other private parties. The Petitioners would therefore not have the locus standi to seek a declaration in terms of Section 24 (2) of the 2013 Act in such cases since the very fact that they have sought regularisation on the basis that they are in unauthorised colony would be an admission that they do not otherwise have any valid right, title or interest in the land in question.
49. This Court has by order dated 19th December 2018 in WP(C) No.190/2016 (Harbhagwan Batra v. Govt. Of NCT of Delhi) and order dated 8th January 2019 in WP(C) No.10201/2015 (Gurmeet Singh Grewal v. Union of India) negatived similar pleas by the Petitioners who were trying to seek similar declaration of lapsing even while admitting that they were pursuing regularisation of an unauthorised colony.
50. In a decision dated 10th January 2019 in W.P. (C) 3623 of 2018 (Akhil Sibal v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi) this Court observed in this context as under: “18. The Court at this stage may also observe that many of the unauthorized colonies are awaiting regularization orders. A large portion of these colonies are by way of encroachment on public land, some of it may be on private land, but in any event, the constructions themselves are unauthorized. The major premise on which such regularization is sought is that these constructions have been erected on public or private land which does not belong to the persons who are under occupation of those structures. That very basis gets contradicted as some of them try to seek a declaration about lapsing of the land acquisition proceedings by invoking Section 24 (2) of the 2013 Act. This is a contradiction in terms and is legally untenable.”
14. The above decision was reiterated by this Court in its order dated 25th January 2019 in W.P.(C) 3438/2015 (Krishna Devi v. Union of India).
15. The second difficulty of course is that the Petitioner has no valid explanation for the inordinate delay in approaching the Court for relief. The Award in question was passed on 2nd January 2006 and yet this petition was filed only in 2015. In seeking to explain this delay, learned counsel for the Petitioner again stated that there was a dispute with certain other claimants in relation to the same property which was pending before the ADM. However, till date no such documents have been placed before the Court to substantiate the plea.
16. On the question of laches, in Mahavir v. Union of India (2018) 3 SCC 588 the Supreme Court has observed as under: “23. In the instant case, the claim has been made not only belatedly, but neither the petitioners nor their previous three generations had ever approached any of the authorities in writing for claiming compensation. No representation had ever been filed with any authority, none has been annexed and there is no averment made in the petition that any such representation had ever been filed. The claim appears not only stale and dead but extremely clouded. This we are mentioning as additional reasons, as such claims not only suffer from delay and laches but courts are not supposed to entertain such claims. Besides such claims become doubtful, cannot be received for consideration being barred due to delay and laches.
24. The High Court has rightly observed that such claims cannot be permitted to be raised in the court, and cannot be adjudicated as they are barred. The High Court has rightly observed that such claims cannot be a subject matter of inquiry after the lapse of a reasonable period of time and beneficial provisions of Section 24 of the 2013 Act are not available to such incumbents. In our opinion, Section 24 cannot revive those claims that are dead and stale.”
17. The above decision was reaffirmed by the judgment of the three Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Indore Development Authority v. Shailendra (2018) 3 SCC 412 where it was observed as under: “128. In our considered opinion section 24 cannot be used to revive the dead or stale claims and the matters, which have been contested up to this Court or even in the High Court having lost the cases or where reference has been sought for enhancement of the compensation. Compensation obtained and still it is urged that physical possession has not been taken from them, such claims cannot be entertained under the guise of section 24(2). We have come across the cases in which findings have been recorded that by which of drawing a Panchnama, possession has been taken, now again under Section 24(2) it is asserted again that physical possession is still with them. Such claims cannot be entertained in view of the previous decisions in which such plea ought to have been raised and such decisions would operate as res judicata or constructive res judicata. As either the plea raised is negatived or such plea ought to have been raised or was not raised in the previous round of litigation. Section 24 of the Act of 2013 does not supersede or annul the court‟s decision and the provisions cannot be misused to reassert such claims once over again. Once Panchnama has been drawn and by way of drawing the Panchnama physical possession has been taken, the case cannot be reopened under the guise of section 24 of Act of 2013.
129. Section 24 is not intended to come to the aid of those who first deliberately refuse to accept the compensation, and then indulge in ill-advised litigation, and often ill-motivated dilatory tactics, for decades together. On the contrary, the section is intended to help those who have not been offered or paid the compensation despite it being the legal obligation of the acquiring body so to do, and/or who have been illegally deprived of their possession for five years or more; in both the scenarios, fault/cause not being attributable to the landowners/claimants.
130. We are of the view that stale or dead claims cannot be the subject-matter of judicial probing under section 24 of the Act of
2013. The provisions of section 24 do not invalidate those judgment/orders of the courts where under rights/claims have been lost/negatived, neither do they revive those rights which have come barred, either due to inaction or otherwise by operation of law. Fraudulent and stale claims are not at all to be raised under the guise of section 24. Misuse of provisions of section 24(2) cannot be permitted. Protection by the courts in cases of such blatant misuse of the provisions of law could never have been the intention behind enacting the provisions of section 24 (2) of the 2013 Act; and, by the decision laid down in Pune Municipal Corporation (supra), and this Court never, even for a moment, intended that such cases would be received or entertained by the courts.”
18. Consequently, the reliefs prayed for in the present petition cannot be granted, for the aforementioned reasons. However, as clarified in Krishna Devi (supra), the dismissal of this present petition will not come in the way of the Petitioner pursuing the regularization of the unauthorized colony in question.
19. The petition is accordingly dismissed.
S. MURALIDHAR, J. I.S. MEHTA, J.