This is an application 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act for alleged violation and disobedience of the order dated 30.11.2010 passed by this Court in Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 17884 of 2003, Dinesh Pratap Singh and others Vs. State of U. P. and others.
Facts, giving rise to the dispute, are as under :
Writ Petition no. 17884 of 2003 was filed by Dinesh Pratap Singh, predecessor-in-interest of applicant no. 1, and Dukh Haran Upadhyaya, predecessor-in-interest of applicants no. 2 to 4, claiming compensation for the land, said to have been acquired by Irrigation Canal Department in the year 1975 for construction of irrigation canal without resorting to the procedure under the Land Acquisition Act. On 17.02.2009, a Division Bench of this Court passed the following order :
"Hon'ble P. C. Verma, J.
Hon'ble S. K. Gupta, J.
Learned Standing Counsel appearing for the State made a submission at bar on the instruction received from the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Varanasi that the request has ben sent by the Superintending Engineer Irrigation vide leter dated 2.4.2008 for sanction of the requisite funds for payment of compensation.
The Principal Secretary (Irrigation) is directed to release compensation to the petitioners within a period of 15 days. If the payment is not made to the petitioners within 15 days, the Principal Secretary (Irrigation) shall appear in person before this Court on 16th March, 2009.
This order is being passed in presence of the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Varanasi, who shall be responsible for compliance of the order. The compensation shall be paid at market value as prevalent today in view of the fact that no notification under Section 4 or 6 of Land Acquisition Act has been issued as yet but still the land of the petitioners was taken away by the State without acquiring it.
List on 16th March, 2009.
Copy of the order shall be paid available on payment of usual charges by tomorrow."
On 13.04.2009, Division Bench passed the following order :
"Hon'ble P. C. Verma, J.
Hon'ble D. R. Azad, J.
Mr. Rajnikant Singh, Assistant Engineer, Moosa Khand, Dam Division, Varanasi is present before this Court today in compliance of our order dated 8.4.2009 and contended that he shall make the payment by 22.4.2009 at the rate prevalent today in the vicinity.
List on 22.4.2009. It is directed that in case the payment is made by 22.4.2009 the petitioner shall execute the sale deed within a week from the date of receipt of the money and failing the payment of money the Assistant Engineer shall appear in person on the date fixed."
When the matter was taken up on 08.05.2009, a statement was made by the learned Standing Counsel that the entire amount payable to the petitioners has been paid and now they have to execute the sale deed in favour of State. However, the facts were being disputed by the petitioners and in the circumstances, the Division Bench passed the following order:
"Hon'ble P. C. Verma, J.
Hon'ble S. K. Gupta, J.
Learned Standing Counsel has submitted that the entire amount payable to the petitioner has been paid. The petitioner now has to execute the sale deed in favour of State.
According to the petitioner the entire amount has not been paid.
In view of this rival contention of the learned counsels for the parties, we are not in a position to direct the petitioner to execute the sale deed. Therefore, we leave it for the Collector concerned to reconsider and negotiate afresh with petitioner and pay the whole amount as settled between the parties and thereafter the petitioner shall execute the sale deed.
With this observation, this application is disposed of."
When the writ petition was listed on 31.07.2009 before another Division Bench, on the strength of the statement made by the learned counsel for the petitioners that negotiation between the parties is going on and there is possibility that the same may be settled within short time, the proceedings were adjourned for four weeks.
The writ petition was taken up on 30.11.2010 and without bringing on record any information regarding the outcome of the negotiation between the parties for enhancement of compensation, learned counsel for the petitioners restricted his prayer to the extent that his representation be decided within stipulated period of time and in view of the same, the writ petition was disposed of on the said date by following order :
"Hon'ble P. C. Verma, J.
Hon'ble Virendra Singh, J.
Learned counsel for the petitioners has restricted his prayer to the extent that his representation be decided within stipulated period of time.
In the circumstances of the case the Collector concerned is directed to decide the representation of the petitioners for the enhancement of compensation by speaking order applying the principles contained in the Land Acquisition Act if possible within a period of two months from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order. The petitioners will be afforded opportunity of hearing by the concerned authority before passing the order.
The concerned authority after taking decision on the representation of the petitioners will communicate the same to the petitioners.
With the above observation, the writ petition is disposed of finally."
Alleging non compliance of the aforesaid order, the legal heirs of the two deceased petitioners have filed the present contempt application.
In pursuance to the notice issued by this Court, committee was constituted by the District Magistrate to decide the rate prevailing at that time on the basis of exemplars. The committee met on 24.02.2009 and decided the rate of compensation to be 6.67 lacs per Hectare on the basis of the sale deeds executed in the year 2005 to 2008. It has further been stated in paragraphs 8, 9 and 10 of the counter affidavit that in accordance with the rate determined by the committee, the entire compensation was paid to the predecessor-in-interest of the present applicants by means of Bank Draft on 21.04.2009, copy of the receipt of Bank Draft has been filed as Annexure '4' to the counter affidavit. It has further been stated that after receiving the entire amount of compensation, Dinesh Pratap Singh, predecessor-in-interest of the applicant no. 1, and Dukh Haran Upadhyaya, predecessor-in-interest of the applicant no. 2, executed sale deed of their land on 28.04.2009. In both the sale deeds, it is categorically mentioned that the entire amount of compensation has been paid and no further amount remains due towards compensation.
From the record, it appears that the petitioners filed modification application to modify the order dated 17.02.2009 which was pending. In the meantime, after accepting the compensation, they executed sale deed on 28.04.2009. The modification application was taken up on 08.05.2009 and without informing the Court that sale deeds have already been executed by them, the petitioners of the writ petition succeeded in obtaining the direction to the Collector concerned to reconsider and negotiate afresh with petitioner and pay the whole amount as settled between the parties and thereafter the sale deeds shall be executed. When the writ petition was taken up on 31.07.2009, again the Court was misled that negotiations are still going on and the facts that sale deeds have been executed after receiving the entire amount was not brought to the notice of the Court. Even though the sale deeds were executed after paying the entire agreed compensation, still in compliance of the order dated 08.05.2009, a meeting consisting of Additional District Magistrate (Finance and Revenue), Special Land Acquisition Officer and Assistant Engineer of the Irrigation Department was held with Surendra Pratap Singh & Dukh Haran Upadhyaya. The petitioners though insisted for enhancing the compensation but since it was found that the compensation was rightly determined on the basis of exemplars and no further amount was payable. Again when the matter was taken up on 30.11.2010, the petitioners failed to inform the Court that the sale deeds have been executed after receiving the entire compensation mislead the Court to pass an order directing the representation for enhancement of compensation to be decided by speaking order applying the principles contained in the Land Acquisition Act. Counter Affidavit further reveals that by 30.11.2010 when the petitioners misled the Court to pass an order to decide the representation regarding enhancement of the compensation, as a matter of fact, no such representation was made by the said date. The petitioners actually made a representation on 11.01.2011 after the order dated 30.11.2010 was obtained by them by misleading the Court.
The fact that the sale deed was executed after receiving the compensation has not been denied by the applicants in the rejoinder affidavit. The fact that the representation was filed by them on 11.01.2011 after obtaining the order dated 30.11.2010 has also not been denied.
The facts narrated above clearly go to show that in compliance of the orders passed by this Court, the market value of the land had been ascertained and accordingly compensation was paid to the petitioners and thereafter they executed sale deeds. Concealing the facts and by misleading the Court, the petitioners succeeded in obtaining the order dated 30.11.2010 even though by that time, they had even not made any representation seeking enhancement of the compensation. The petitioners of the writ petition having obtained the compensation and after having executed the sale deeds without any protest are not entitled to claim any enhancement of compensation.
The entire facts and circumstances go to show that the respondents-authorities in compliance of the order passed by this Court not only determined the compensation in accordance with the market value by considering the various exemplars but also made payment of the same. It is the petitioners and the present applicants, who are legal heirs, misled the Court by concealing the material facts to pass the order dated 30.11.2010 and they have now approached this Court alleging non compliance of the same.
Thus, it cannot be said that there is any willful disobedience on the part of the respondents in not carrying out the orders nor can they be charged for any disobedience of an order which has been obtained by misleading and concealing the material facts from the Court.
In view of the above facts and discussions, no case of contempt, as alleged, can be said to be made out.
The contempt notices are discharged and the contempt application be consigned to record.
Order Date :- 5.7.2012 Dcs