Summary
Land at village Chattarpur, Delhi, was notified under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 on 25.11.1980; Section 6 declarations followed in 1985–86 and the award was made on 05.06.1987, but writ petitions produced stays of dispossession and Delhi High Court judgments treating the Section 6 notification as quashed altogether, a view the Supreme Court rejected in Abhey Ram (1997) and Gurdip Singh Uban-I and II (1999–2000). The landowners filed a writ petition in 1999 claiming the acquisition stood quashed and obtained a stay of dispossession on 09.07.1999 operating when the 2013 Act commenced; in 2014 the High Court declared the acquisition lapsed under Section 24(2). The Supreme Court allowed the DDA's appeal: the State could not take possession while the notification stood quashed or stays operated, so there was no stay-free period of five years before 01.01.2014.
Issues
- Whether acquisition proceedings in which the award was made in 1987 lapsed under Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, when possession could not be taken because the High Court had quashed the Section 6 notification (a view later overturned by the Supreme Court) and the landowners themselves held a stay of dispossession when the 2013 Act came into force.
- Whether the absence in Section 24(2) of an express exclusion clause of the kind found in Explanation 2 to Section 6 and the Explanation to Section 11-A of the 1894 Act means that periods covered by court orders cannot be excluded in computing the five years.
Provisions considered
- Section 24(2), Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013Following Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal, the period during which the authority was disabled by court orders from taking possession must be excluded; the law does not compel the impossible and a litigant cannot take advantage of a situation created by his own interim order. Between the quashing of the Section 6 notification by the High Court (1989/1996), its restoration by this Court (1999/2000) and the landowners' own stay of 09.07.1999, there was no stay-free period of five years before 01.01.2014, so the acquisition did not lapse. (¶¶ 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
- Sections 4, 5-A, 6 and 11-A, Land Acquisition Act, 1894The Section 6 declarations and the 1987 award survived: Balak Ram-II quashed the acquisition only in personam for petitioners whose Section 5-A objections were not heard, and Balbir Singh and Sudan Singh, which treated the notification as quashed in rem, were disapproved in Abhey Ram and Gurdip Singh Uban-I and II (as reiterated in Om Prakash and DDA v. Godfrey Phillips). The present landowners never disputed the acquisition for non-consideration of objections before the award. (¶¶ 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 13, 16, 20, 26)
Held
- Balak Ram-II was a judgment in personam confined to petitioners whose objections under Section 5-A had not been heard; the Delhi High Court's later view in Balbir Singh and Gurdip Singh Uban that the whole Section 6 notification stood quashed, and its affirmation in Sudan Singh, were not approved by this Court in Abhey Ram and Gurdip Singh Uban-I and II, so no right accrued to landowners who had not challenged the acquisition on that ground (DDA v. Godfrey Phillips). (¶¶ 6, 9, 10, 20, 26)
- Because the High Court had quashed the entire notification, the State could not take possession on the strength of a quashed notification until this Court set those judgments aside in 1999–2000; before that, on 09.07.1999, the landowners obtained a stay of dispossession which continued when the 2013 Act came into force. The argument that there was no stay between the award of 1987 and 1999 is only partly correct — there was no stay but the acquisition itself stood quashed — so there was no five-year period free of stay or of the quashing before 01.01.2014. (¶¶ 17, 21, 22, 26, 28)
- Under Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal only the twin failure to take possession or pay compensation leads to lapse, and the period during which authorities are disabled by court orders must be excluded: convenience cannot accrue to a party from his own wrong (commodum ex injuria sua nemo habere debet), the law does not expect performance of the impossible, and Section 24 does not treat litigants and non-litigants differently. A landowner who prevented possession by obtaining interim orders cannot take shelter under Section 24(2) (DDA v. Rajan Sood; DDA v. Bhim Sain Goel), and it would be antithetical to public interest to compel the Government to pay afresh under the 2013 Act for land that already belongs to it. (¶¶ 24, 25, 27, 28)
Result
Appeal allowed; the Delhi High Court's order of 22.12.2014 in W.P.(C) No. 1786 of 1999 declaring the acquisition of 14 bigha 8 biswa at village Chattarpur lapsed under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act set aside and the landowners' writ petition dismissed.