Yogesh Neema And Others v. State Of Madhya Pradesh And Others

Order

1. In the present special leave petition, apart from several other issues urged by the petitioners to challenge the order Writ Appeal No. 128 of 2008 of the High Court upholding the acquisition under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, a question has been raised with regard to the applicability 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”) and whether in view of the fact that the possession had not been taken over despite the award being passed five years prior to 1-1-2014 the land acquisition proceedings have lapsed. It may be taken note of at this stage that the petitioners had been the beneficiaries of the interim order of the High Court as well as this Court SLP (C) No. 10742 of 2008 on account of which possession of the acquired land could not be taken over by the State. It has also to be noted that the order of the High Court had upheld the acquisition in question and the writ petition(s) was dismissed.

2. The matter appears to have been settled by a decision of a coordinate Bench of this Court in Sree Balaji Nagar Residential Assn. v. State of T.N. (2015) 3 SCC 353 Paras 11 and 12 of the aforesaid decision which contain the reasons for the view taken may be extracted below:

“11. From a plain reading of Section 24 of the 2013 Act it is clear that Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act does not exclude any period during which the land acquisition proceedings might have remained stayed on account of stay or injunction granted by any court. In the same Act, the proviso to Section 19(7) in the context of limitation for publication of declaration under Section 19(1) and the Explanation to Section 69(2) for working out the market value of the land in the context of delay between preliminary notification under Section 11 and the date of the award, specifically provide that the period or periods during which the acquisition proceedings were held up on account of any stay or injunction by the order of any court be excluded in computing the relevant period. In that view of the matter it can be safely concluded that the legislature has consciously omitted to extend the period of five years indicated in Section 24(2) even if the proceedings had been delayed on account of an order of stay or injunction granted by a court of law or for any reason. Such casus omissus cannot be supplied by the court in view of law on the subject elaborately discussed by this Court in Padma Sundara Rao v. State of T.N. (2002) 3 SCC 533

12. Even in the Land Acquisition Act of 1894, the legislature had brought about amendment in Section 6 through an Amendment Act of 1984 to add Explanation I for the purpose of excluding the period when the proceeding suffered stay by an order of the court, in the context of limitation provided for publishing the declaration under Section 6(1) of the Act. To a similar effect was the Explanation to Section 11-A which was added by Amendment Act 68 of 1984. Clearly the legislature has, in its wisdom, made the period of five years under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act absolute and unaffected by any delay in the proceedings on account of any order of stay by a court. The plain wordings used by the legislature are clear and do not create any ambiguity or conflict. In such a situation, the court is not required to depart from the literal rule of interpretation.”

3. A consideration of the aforesaid paragraphs of Sree Balaji case (2015) 3 SCC 353 would go to indicate that what had prevailed with the coordinate Bench of this Court to take the view in question is that the omission in Section 24(2) to specifically exclude the period covered by an interim order of this Court staying the acquisition proceeding is a conscious omission of the legislature and the courts cannot fill up such an omission. In para 12 of the aforesaid decision the fact that similar situations in the Land Acquisition Act had been subsequently rectified by means of appropriate amendments to Sections 6 and 11-A by bringing in Explanation thereto has also been noticed.

4. The aforesaid decision of the coordinate Bench of this Court in Sree Balaji Nagar Residential Assn. (2015) 3 SCC 353 has been followed in a large number of cases, details of which have been laid before us. The decision of a three-Judge Bench of this Court in Union of India v. Shiv Raj (2014) 6 SCC 564 has also been laid before us.

5. We have considered the views expressed in Sree Balaji Nagar Residential Assn. (2015) 3 SCC 353 and Union of India v. Shiv Raj (2014) 6 SCC 564. At the outset, we clarify that upon reading the decision of the three-Judge Bench of this Court in Union of India v. Shiv Raj (2014) 6 SCC 564, we do not find any view of the Bench on the question arising, namely, whether the period during which the award had been remained stayed should be excluded for the purposes of consideration of the provisions of Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act. Insofar as the decision of the coordinate Bench of this Court in Sree Balaji Nagar Residential Assn. (2015) 3 SCC 353 is concerned, having read and considered paras 11 and 12 thereof, as extracted above, it is our considered view that the legal effect of the absence of any specific exclusion of the period covered by an interim order in Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act requires serious reconsideration having regard to the fact that it is an established principle of law that the act of the court cannot be understood to cause prejudice to any of the contesting parties in a litigation, which is expressed in the maxim “actus curiae neminem gravabit”. We, accordingly, take the view that the aforesaid question should receive the attention and consideration of a larger Bench of this Court.

6. The following two questions of law, according to us, would specifically require an authoritative pronouncement for an appropriate adjudication on the factual controversy arising in the present case and in a large number of connected cases:

6.1. (i) Whether the conscious omission referred to in para 11 of the judgment in Sree Balaji Nagar Residential Assn. (2015) 3 SCC 353 makes any substantial difference to the legal position with regard to the exclusion or inclusion of the period covered by an interim order of the Court for the purpose of determination of the applicability of Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act?

6.2. (ii) Whether the principle of “actus curiae neminem gravabit”, namely, act of the court should not prejudice any party would be applicable in the present case to exclude the period covered by an interim order for the purpose of determining the question with regard to taking of possession as contemplated in Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act?

7. The Registry of this Court is directed to place the papers before the Hon'ble the Chief Justice of India for appropriate orders. We make it clear that as the aforesaid questions posed by us are required to be answered at the threshold we have refrained from going into the other questions raised on behalf of the petitioners which would undoubtedly be open to be considered in the event the same becomes necessary.