Hon'ble Yashwant Varma,J.
(By Yashwant Varma,J) We have heard Shri Pankaj Dubey in support of the writ petition, and the learned Standing Counsel for the respondent nos. 1 to 3.
Not chastened by the indictment meted out to him by this Court on more than one occasion, the petitioner yet again files the instant writ petition seeking an appropriate writ for release of the plots in question placing reliance upon the provisions of Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (hereinafter for the sake of brevity called the "Act, 2013").
The present writ petition emanates from notifications issued under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter for the sake of brevity called the "Act, 1894") issued on 06/10/1989 and 31/8/1990, in terms of which the land in question was acquired for the respondent Bhadohi Industrial Develoment Authority for implementation of the Rajpura Commercial-cum Residential Scheme at Bhadohi.
The petitioner asserts that he is in actual physical possession of the plots in question and neither he nor his predecessors have accepted compensation till date. On the aforesaid assertion, it is contended on behalf of the petitioner that the provisions of Section 24 (2) of the Act, 2013 clearly come into play and accordingly would want us to declare that the proceeding of acquisition taken under the Act, 1894 to have lapsed.
However, the above assertions and submissions of the petitioner cannot be viewed without first briefly noticing the history of challenge to the acquisition process laid by him, his mother as well as his brother on more than one occasion when they petitioned this Court on earlier occasions.
The earliest challenge to the acquisition notifications referred to above was laid by Smt. Umrai Devi, the mother of the petitioner by filing Writ Petition No.1731/1990, which came to be dismissed by this Court vide judgment dated 13/5/2003. The Special Leave Petition taken against the said judgment by this Court also came to be dismissed on 04/4/2005, by the Supreme Court of India. Not deterred by the dismissal of the challenge to the acquisition notifications, the brother of the petitioner filed Writ Petition No.41350/2003, which came to be dismissed by this Court by imposing exemplary cost of Rs. 10,000/- on 10/9/2003.
Concealing the aforesaid facts, the brother of the petitioner again approached this Court preferring Writ Petition No.43818/2005, and this petition too met a similar fate being dismissed on 10/6/2005. It would be apposite to extract the operative portion of the judgment of this Court which reads as follows:
"In view of the above, we have no option but to dismiss the writ petition holding that the petitioner has been guilty of suppressing material facts and has not approached this Court with clean hands.
The writ petition is accordingly dismissed with the aforesaid cost, in view of the findings recorded by us, hereinabove.
In view of the aforesaid findings arrived at by us, we find it necessary to also impose exemplary cost on the petitioner for having unnecessary burdened this Court with the present writ petition which, in our opinion, was a clearly attempt by the petitioner amounting to a profuse abuse of the process of Court.
We, accordingly impose an exemplary cost of Rs. 20,000/- (Rupees Twenty Thousands Only). The same shall become recoverable as arrears of land revenue and the District Collector, Sant Ravidas Nagar shall ensure recovery of the aforesaid amount and to get the same deposited with the Legal Services Committee of the High Court, Allahabad through the Registrar General of this Court, as directed hereinabove.
A copy of this order be sent by the Registry to the learned District Collector, Sant Ravidas Nagar for compliance."
After dismissal of the aforesaid writ petitions, the petitioner approached this Court preferring Writ Petition No.3821/2011, contending therein that the possession of the land continues to remain with him and, therefore, the land should be released in his favour. This writ petition too came to be dismissed by this Court vide its judgment dated 21/1/2011. It is important to highlight here that in this petition also the issue of the petitioner not having been paid the compensation or the same not having been paid or deposited as well as he continuing to be in possession was directly raised and rejected. The State Respondents therein also produced the Panchnama evidencing the taking over of possesion of the plots in question. The above is evident from the following findings returned by this Court which reads as under:
"In our opinion, once the challenge to the acquisition proceedings has been negated by this Court and upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the award has been passed, the contention raised by the writ petitioner that the plots have been sold to the private persons, in our opinion, is irrelevant. Once the award has been made and compensation has been paid, the land vests in the authority free from all encumbrances and it is open to the authority to use the land for the public purpose for which it was acquired or other public purposes in respect of which they can carry out the activities. Respondent no.3, admittedly is an Industrial Development Authority, meant for developing the industrial areas and it can only be done by allotting plots to the different industries for setting up their units."
While one would have thought that things would rest here, the petitioner preferred yet another writ petition being Writ Petition No.28260/2012, which was dismissed by this Court on 18/7/2012, for want of prosecution. While dimissing the petition for want of prosecution, this Court noticed the previous writ petitions which had been filed by the present petitioner as well as his brother. Not stopping here, the petitioner again approached this Court by means of Writ Petition No.17279/2013, in which he again sought the issuance of a writ for deciding an application purportedly made under Section 48 of the Act, 1894. This Court was apprised of the earlier litigation instituted by the petitioner, the findings recorded against him on more than one occasion and while rejecting the prayer of the petitioner for withdrawal of the writ petition, dismissed the same with costs of Rs. 25,000/-.
Here, it would be apposite to refer to the following findings as recorded in the judgement of this Court dated 03/4/2013 rendered upon the aforesaid writ petition which reads as under:
"A copy of that order has been produced before us which shows that in reply to petitioner's contention that he is still in possession over the land in question, the respondents produced before the Court a Panchnama dated 24th October, 2003 to show that possession of the land had been taken. That order, if annexed, would defeat the application of the petitioner under Section 48 of the Act because power under this Section can be exercised by the State Government only if the possession of the acquired land has not been taken. We have no hesitation in holding that the concealment is deliberate."
It is in the aforesaid background that the present challenge laid by the petitioner and the reliefs sought therein are liable to be considered. Let it may be noted at the outset that in the earlier judgments handed down against the petitioner, it was categorically recorded by this Court on more than one occasion that (a) possession of the land had been taken and (b) that compensation has been paid and deposited by the respondents. This Court took notice of the possession memo produced before it and held that possession had been taken and that compensation had also been paid and deposited and, therefore, proceeded to negate the challenge laid by the petitioner. Despite the aforesaid findings recorded in the aforementioned judgments of this Court, which have attained finality inter-parties (having never been challenged by the petitioner) the petitioner again blatantly contends that he is in actual and physical possession of the land. In our opinion, once this Court in the earlier writ petitions had clearly negatived the challenge to the acquisition, rejected the prayer of the petitioner for consideration of his case under Section 48 of the Act, 1894, perused the possession memo and recorded a finding to the effect that the petitioner stood divested of possession, that the land vested in the respondents free from all encumbrances, it is clearly not permissible for the petitioner to contend to the contrary or to petition this Court to revisit the same issue. In fact, there is no material on record which may even remotely impress this Court to embark upon such an exercise.
Insofar as the issue of compensation is concerned, the petitioner in the writ petition states that neither he nor his predecessors had accepted compensation at any time. This is evident from paragraphs 6 and 8 of the writ petition where this statement is unambiguously made.
For the purposes of application of sub-section (2) of Section 24 of the Act, 2013, it was necessary for the petitioner to establish that notwithstanding an award under Section 11 having been made five years or more prior to the commencement of the Act, 2013 (a) the physical possession of the land had not been taken or (b) that compensation had not been paid.
As noticed above, the petitioner, as per the findings recorded against him in the previous rounds of litigation, stood clearly divested of the possession of the land and, therefore, did not meet the first condition for applicability of Section 24 (2) of the Act, 2013.
Insofar as the issue of compensation having not been paid this Court in the earlier petition filed by the Petitioner has clearly held and noticed that Award had been declared and that payments had been made pursuant thereto. It is also not the case of the petitioner that an award was not declared, nor is it the case of the petitioner that the proceeds of the award were either not offered to him nor deposited in the Court as was required in terms of Section 30 of the Act,1894. What he avers in the writ is that neither the petitioner nor his predecessors had "accepted any compensation till date." This statement/assertion which is made in paragraphs 6 and 8 of the writ petition would not attract the provisions of sub section (2) of Section 24 for the requirement of the provision is not whether the landholder accepted compensation or not but whether "compensation has not been paid....". We may however not be detained or delayed by this aspect of the matter in light of the categorical findings recorded by the earlier pronouncments of this Court qua the Petitioner himself.
Learned counsel for the petitioner lastly invited our attention to a Questionnaire obtained by him purportedly from the office of the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Bhadohi dated 11/8/2014, and on the basis of the said document wants to establish that compensation had not been paid. However, a perusal of the aforesaid questionnaire and a careful reading of the questions to which a response was sought clearly establishes that this was yet another attempt to mislead this Court. The question posed before the Special Land Acquisition Officer was whether the amount of compensation stood deposited in the account of the petitioner to which a response in the negative is given by the office of the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Bhadohi. We are unable to comprehend as to how the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Bhadohi on the strength of the records maintained in his office would possibly know whether the money stood deposited in the account of the petitioner. The payment register maintained in the office of the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Bhadohi only carries the signatures/endorsements of the land holders against the amount awarded as compensation. In our opinion, therefore, this document also does not establish that compensation was not deposited nor paid to the petitioner.
Upon an overall conspectus of the above, we are constrained to observe that the instant writ petition is nothing but another attempt by the petitioner to abuse the process of this Court and accordingly we proceed to dismiss the instant writ petition. We would have ordinarily been compelled to impose costs upon the petitioner considering his past conduct but have refrained from doing so as the issue of applicability of the provisions of the Act, 2013 (albeit on untenable grounds) has been raised by the petitioner for the first time. We are however, constrained to observe that any similar misconceived forays by the petitioner would be liable to be viewed strictly including the imposition of exemplary costs.
The writ petition is accordingly dismissed.
SB 17.11.2014 (Yashwant Varma, J.) (Dinesh Maheshwari, J.)