TMI Blog2015 (8) TMI 1107X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ould not have been intended by the Legislature. Section 11-A in terms does not provide for exclusion of the time taken to obtain a certified copy of the Judgment or order by which the stay order was either granted or vacated. Section 12 of the Limitation Act has no application to the making of an Award under the Land Acquisition Act. In the absence of any enabling provision either in Section 11-A of the Land Acquisition Act or in the Limitation Act, there is no room for borrowing the principles underlying Section 12 of the Limitation Act for computing the period or determining the validity of an Award by reference to Section 11-A of the Land Acquisition Act. Under Section 28A which provides for re-determination of the amount of compensation on the basis of the Award of the Court, the aggrieved party is entitled to move a written application to the Collector within three months from the date of the Award of the Court or the Collector requiring him to determine the amount of compensation payable to him on the basis of the amount Awarded by the Court. Proviso to Section 28A specifically excludes the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the Award while computing the period of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , 1994, the validity whereof was assailed by four owners (Pattadars), respondents in this appeal in Writ Petition No.27/483 of 1995 primarily on the ground that the declaration under Section 6 had been issued beyond the period of limitation stipulated for the purpose. An application for interim stay was also moved by the writ-petitioners, in which a Single Judge of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh granted an interim stay on 6th September, 1995. The writ petition was finally dismissed by the High Court by a judgment and order dated 20th July, 1999. Aggrieved by the said order of dismissal the respondent filed Writ Appeal No.1228 of 1999 which too failed and was dismissed by the Division Bench on 13th August, 1999. 4. With the dismissal of the writ petition and the appeal arising out of the same, the Collector made an Award under Section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act on 5th November, 1999. The appellant-company s case is that all the owners, except the four respondents who had moved the High Court, sought a reference of the dispute regarding the quantum of compensation payable to them to the Civil Court in which Senior Civil Judge, Manthani, District Karimnagar, A.P. held the exp ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n pursuance of the said declaration is stayed by an order of a Court shall be excluded. 8. It is evident from the above that in order to be valid, the Award must be made within a period of two years from the date of the publication of the declaration under Section 6 of the Act. The declaration in the instant case was published on 2nd March, 1994 while the Award was made on 5th November, 1999. The same was, therefore, clearly beyond two years period stipulated under the above provisions. Even so the Award could be held to be valid if the same was within two years of the declaration after excluding the period during which the High Court had stayed the proceedings in the writ petition filed by the respondent-landowners. That is because Explanation to Section 11-A (supra) permits exclusion of the period during which the Court had stayed the acquisition proceedings for the purpose of reckoning the period of two years prescribed for making the Award. In the case at hand the interim order of stay was issued by the High Court on 6th December, 1995 which order was finally vacated on 28th July, 1999 with the dismissal of the writ petition. This means that the restraint order remained in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... view, not only by the Constitution Bench in Padma Sundara Rao s case (supra) but also in R. Indira Sartchandra s case (supra), the ratio of the said decisions alone stated the correct legal position, which was squarely applicable to the case at hand. 10. It is, in our opinion, not necessary to delve deep into the merits of the contention urged on behalf of the appellant which is founded entirely on the ratio of the decision of this Court in N. Narasimhaiah s case (supra). Correctness of the view taken in N. Narasimhaiah s case (supra) was examined by the Constitution Bench of this Court in Padma Sundara Rao s case (supra) and overruled. If the matter rested there, we may have examined the question whether the prospective overruling of the decision in N. Narasimhaiah s case (supra) was of any assistance to the appellant in the facts and circumstances of the case at hand. That exercise is rendered unnecessary by the decision rendered by this Court in R. Indira Sartchandra s case (supra), which places the matter beyond the pale of any further debate on the subject. In R. Indira Sartchandra s case (supra) also the Award made by the Collector was sought to be supported on the ground ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... f the Act. 13. There is yet another dimension to the contention urged before us which too in our opinion stands concluded by the decision of this Court in Ravi Khullar and Another v. Union of India Ors. (2007) 5 SCC 231. That was a case where a preliminary notification under Section 4 was issued on 23rd January, 1965 and a declaration under Section 6 published on 26th December, 1968 i.e. before the commencement of the Amendment Act of 1984. In terms of sub-section (1) of Section 11-A applicable to such a declaration, an Award was required to be made within a period of two years from such commencement. So calculated, the Award ought to have been made on or before 28th September, 1986 when the period of two years from the commencement of the Amendment Act of 1984 expired. The land owner however had filed a writ petition before the High Court on 12th September, 1986 in which an order for maintenance of status quo was made on 18th September, 1986 restraining the Land Acquisition Officer from announcing the Award. That order continued to remain in force till 13th February, 2003. The High court, eventually, dismissed the writ petition on 13th February, 2003. An application was made ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d order. The Court has, therefore, no option but to compute the period of limitation for making an Award in accordance with the provisions of Section 11-A of the Act after excluding such period as can be excluded under the Explanation to Section 11-A of the Act. 14. This Court drew a comparison between Section 11-A and Section 28-A of the Act, and based on the difference between the two provisions, observed: 56. It will thus be seen that the legislature wherever it considered necessary incorporated by express words the rule incorporated in Section 12 of the Limitation Act. It has done so expressly in Section 28-A of the Act while it has consciously not incorporated this rule in Section 11-A even while providing for exclusion of time under the Explanation. The intendment of the legislature is therefore unambiguous and does not permit the court to read words into Section 11-A of the Act so as to enable it to read Section 12 of the Limitation Act into Section 11-A of the Land Acquisition Act. 15. We are in respectful agreement with the above line of reasoning. Section 11-A in terms does not provide for exclusion of the time taken to obtain a certified copy of the Judgment ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... llector within three months from the date of the Award of the Court require that the amount of compensation payable to them may be re- determined on the basis of the amount of compensation Awarded by the Court: Provided that in computing the period of three months within which an application to the Collector shall be made under this sub- section, the day on which the Award was pronounced and the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the Award shall be excluded. (emphasis supplied) xxx xxx xxx 17. Absence of a provision analogous to proviso to Section 28A (supra) in the scheme of Section 11-A militates against the argument that the omission of such a provision in Section 11-A is unintended which could be supplied by the Court taking resort to the doctrine of casus omissus. 18. Secondly, because the legal position regarding applicability of the doctrine of casus omissus is settled by a long line of decisions of this Court as well as Courts in England. Lord Diplock in Wentworth Securities v. Jones (1980) AC 1974, revived the doctrine which was under major criticism, by formulating three conditions for its exercise namely, (1) What is the intended purpose of the statute o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he omission in consequence to have been unintentional. In regard to the latter principle the following statement of law appears in Maxwell at page 47: A statute is to be read as a whole- It was resolved in the case of Lincoln College (1595) 3 Co. Rep. 58 that the good expositor of an Act of Parliament should 'make construction on all the parts together, and not of one part only by itself.' Every clause of a statute is to 'be construed with reference to the context and other clauses of the Act, so as, as far as possible, to make a consistent enactment of the whole statute.' (Per Lord Davey in Canada Sugar Refining Co., Ltd. v. R: 1898 AC 735) In other words, under the first principle a casus omissus cannot be supplied by the Court except in the case of clear necessity and when reason for it found in the four corners of the statute itself but at the same time a casus omissus should not be readily inferred and for that purpose all the parts of a statute or section must be construed together and every clause of a section should be construed with reference to the context and other clauses thereof so that the construction to be put on a particular provision makes a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... f the legislature. The language employed in a statute is the determinative factor of legislative intent. The first and primary rule of construction is that the intention of the legislation must be found in the words used by the legislature itself. The question is not what may be supposed and has been intended but what has been said. xxx xxx xxx 14. While interpreting a provision the court only interprets the law and cannot legislate it. If a provision of law is misused and subjected to the abuse of process of law, it is for the legislature to amend, modify or repeal it, if deemed necessary. 22. There is in the case at hand no ambiguity nor do we see any apparent omission in Section 11-A to justify application of the doctrine of casus omissus and by that route re-write 11-A providing for exclusion of time taken for obtaining a copy of the order which exclusion is not currently provided by the said provision. The omission of a provision under Section 11-A analogous to the proviso under Section 28A is obviously not unintended or inadvertent which is the very essence of the doctrine of casus omissus. We, therefore, have no hesitation in rejecting the contention urged by Mr. A ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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