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TMI Blog2021 (6) TMI 1171X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on was paid to landholders including the Petitioners herein after duly issuing notices under Section 12(2) of the LA Act. Sometime later, a Land Acquisition Reference (LAR No. 18 of 2011) was filed before the Joint Civil Judge, Senior Division, Solapur by one of the landholders, one Sangappa Irappa Dabare. The LAR was taken before a Lok Adalat. By a compromise entered into on 13 December 2014, an award was made by the Lok Adalat for payment of enhanced compensation by the State towards acquisition of the Applicant's land (Gat No. 179/5 admeasuring 1.20 H at Village Karjgi, Taluka Akkalkot, District Solapur) together with solatium and interest. Based on this award, on or about 2 March 2015, the Petitioners made an application for enhanced compensation under Section 28A(1) of the LA Act for their properties, being Gat Nos. 243/2 admeasuring 2H and Gat No. 243/5 admeasuring 2H 50 R at Karjgi, Taluka Akkalkot, District Solapur, which were covered by the same notification. By his order dated 10 November 2015, the Sub-Divisional Officer rejected that application on the ground that the decision in LAR No. 18 of 2011 was restricted to that case alone. The SDO also held that the land in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... on (1) and who are also aggrieved by the award of the Collector may notwithstanding that they had not made an application to the Collector under section 18, by written application to the Collector 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 subsection, the day on which the award was pronounced and the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the award shall be excluded. (2) The Collector shall, on receipt of an application under subsection (1), conduct an inquiry after giving notice to all the persons interested and giving them a reasonable opportunity of being heard, and make an award determining the amount of compensation payable to the applicants. (3) Any person who has not accepted the award under subsection (2) may, by written application to the Collector, require that the matter be referred by the Collector for the determination of the Court and the provisions of sections 18 to 28 shall, so far ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... erambhai vs. State of Gujarat. 7. It cannot, accordingly, be gainsaid that as a prerequisite for an application of Section 28A, the award must be by a 'court'. The expression 'court' is defined in Section 3(d) of the LA Act as follows: "(d) the expression "Court" means a principal Civil Court of original jurisdiction, unless the appropriate Government has appointed (as it is hereby empowered to do) a special judicial officer within any specified local limits to perform functions of the Court under this Act." The definition makes it clear at once that the expression having been defined to 'mean', and not 'include' such and such, the definition is prima facie restrictive and exhaustive (See, Vanguard Fire & General Insurance Co. Ltd., Madras vs. Fraser & Ross AIR 1960 SC 971). There is nothing in the scheme of the LA Act, and in particular, in Part III thereof, to suggest otherwise. 8. The net result of the above discussion is that Section 28A of the LA Act can be invoked and applied only when an award has been passed under Part III of the LA Act by a principal Civil Court of original jurisdiction (unless the appropriate Government has appointed a ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... uing a fiction it must not be extended beyond the purpose for which it is created or beyond the language of the Section by which it is created. It cannot be extended by importing another fiction. These principles are well settled and it is not necessary for us to refer to the authorities on this subject. The principle has been succinctly stated by Lord Asquith in East End Dwelling Co. Ltd. V. Finsbury Borough Council, (1951) 2ALL ER 587, when he observed: (All ER p. 599 B-D) "If you are bidden to treat an imaginary state of affairs as real, you must surely, unless prohibited from doing so, also imagine as real the consequences and incidents which, if the putative state of affairs had in fact existed, must inevitably have flowed from or accompanied it. The statute says that you must imagine a certain state of affairs; it does not say that, having done so, you must cause or permit your imagination to boggle when it comes to the inevitable corollaries of that state of affairs"." 11. Our inquiry must be directed, accordingly, to the following two aspects: (i) what was the purpose for which the legal fiction of Section 21 of the LSA Act was created; and (ii) whether treating of an aw ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ompromise or settlement between the parties. Section 21 of the LSA Act provides as follows: "21. Award of Lok Adalat.-- (1) Every award of the Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a decree of a civil court or, as the case may be, an order of any other court and where a compromise or settlement has been arrived at, by a Lok Adalat in a case referred to it under sub-section (1) of section 20, the court-fee paid in such case shall be refunded in the manner provided under the Court Fees Act, 1870. (2) Every award made by a Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the parties to the dispute, and no appeal shall lie to any court against the award." 13. This scheme of the LSA Act, and particularly, Chapter VI thereof, makes the following clear: (a) Any reference to Lok Adalat is a matter of volition of the parties or any one of them; (b) Such reference either can be made (i) by a court before whom the case or matter has been brought or (ii) directly by the authority or committee organising the Lok Adalat; (c) Determination of the case or a matter in pursuance of such reference is exclusively by a compromise or settlement between the parties, which the Lok Adalat seeks to arri ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of reference to the civil court under section 18 of the Act is not usually taken advantage of by inarticulate and poor people and is usually exercised only by the comparatively affluent landowners and that this causes considerable inequality in the payment of compensation for the same or similar quality of land to different interested parties, it is proposed to provide an opportunity to all aggrieved parties whose land is covered under the same notification to seek re-determination of compensation, once any of them has obtained orders for payment of higher compensation from the reference court under section 18 of the Act." 16. On the other hand, the object of Lok Adalats constituted under the LSA Act is to promote settlement of disputes through a conciliatory mechanism. As the Supreme Court observed in the case of State of Punjab Vs. Jalour Singh (2008) 2 Supreme Court Cases 660, Lok Adalats have no adjudicatory or judicial functions; their functions relate purely to conciliation. No Lok Adalat has the power to "hear" parties to adjudicate cases as a court does. It discusses the subject matter with the parties and persuades them to arrive at a just settlement. As the Supreme Cour ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the parties to that reference, that it is an award of that court (i.e. the reference court which sent the matter to the Lok Adalat or for which the Lok Adalat was organised) under Part III of the LA Act. It is simply a deemed decree of a civil court and is executable as such as between the parties. It is only this consequence that is in consonance with the purpose of the LSA Act andthere is no consequence from the standpoint of Section 28A of the LA Act, following as an inevitable corollary. Whilst using the authority of K.N. Govindan Kutty Menon for arriving at our above conclusion, we are mindful that a judgment of a higher court is an authority for what it actually decides and not what follows from it. But then, we have referred to the judgment of K.N. Govindan Kutty Menon only to show that there is no logical inevitability in treating the award of a Lok Adalat as an award of the referring court simply because it was that court which referred the matter to the Lok Adalat or it was that court for which Lok Adalat was organised. 19. If this consequence, namely, the award of Lok Adalat having to be treated as an award of the reference court under Part III, does not follow as an in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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