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Civil Miscellaneous Application No. 721 of 1967 in First Appeal No. 67 of 1966, decided on 28th August 1967.

, S. S0‑‑Acquisition proceedings parties‑‑No appeal filed by Government against award of Court in land acquisition proceedings‑Local authority, for whose benefit proceedings initiated, held, has no privity with owners of land aced cannot claim to be impleaded as a party.

Om Prakash Aggarwala on Compulsory Acquisition of Land (1950 Ed.); Mahananda Roy v. Shish Chandra .Tewari 7 I CIO; Chairman, District Board, Gujranwcla v. Hira Nand A I R 1929 Lah. 10 (2) and In re Chairman, Howrah Municipality 9 C W N 66 reff

Inayat Ali for Appellants.

Iqbal Baluch for A. A: G. for Respondent No. 1.

Murtaza Hussain for Applicant.

This is an application under section 151, C. P. C. on behalf of WAPDA for being impleaded as a respondent in this case.

2. The applicant's case is that the land; which is, the subject matter of these proceedings, has been acquired under the Land Acquisition Act, 189‑1 for its benefit, and that on coming to know of this appeal in March 1967 it has applied to be impleaded as a' respondent. The ground for being impleaded is that the applicant "is directly and vitally affected by the proceedings and is an interested party in the above cause".

3. Mr. Murtaza Hussain, Adv6cate, has in support of the application, argued that the land having been acquired for the benefit of WAPDA and WAPDA being ultimately liable to pay compensation to those whose 'land has been acquired, it is neces sary that WAPDA should be impleaded as .a party to this appeal. According to counsel, obvious injustice has been done in this case inasmuch as the District Judge has increased the compensation from 3 paisas per sq. ft. to 50 paisas per sq. ft. and yet the Govern ment has not appealed against the increase. Thus, according to counsel, gross injustice has resulted to WAPDA. In support of his contention that in the event of patent injustice, the party for whose benefit the land has been acquired should be impleaded as a party to acquisition. proceedings, counsel has relied on the following observations of Om Prakash Aggrawala made in his book on Compulsory Acquisition of Land (1950 Edn.):---

"The interest of the local authority must be subservient to that of Government and it would be dangerous to allow private individuals, local authorities and companies to interfere in the proceeding under 'Part III of the Act. Under such circumstances if Government declines to prefer an appeal the local authority cannot be permitted to do so except in cases of patent injustice."

4. The application is opposed by Mr. Inayat Ali, Advocate, for the appellant. He has referred to Mahananda Roy v. Sarish Chandra Tewari (7 I C 10). It is a case under the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The Calcutta High Court has held in it that only objec tions submitted in the reference can be decided by the authority which hears the reference. Their Lordships have observed that:

"It is settled law that under Part III of the Land Acquisition Act, the Special Court has no jurisdiction to deal with objec tions except those which are made by persons who were parties to proceedings, before the Collector, or who have since within six months applied to the Collector to snake a supplementary reference in their case." Further the observation is:

"We are asked to hold that under section 53 the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure apply to proceedings before the Special Court under this Act. But that section is careful to lay down that they only apply in so far as they are not inconsistent with anything contained in this Act. Now he addition of parties by the Civil Court, who have not been made parties to the reference by the Collector, is wholly, inconsistent with the Act. The Civil Curt, therefore, had no jurisdiction to make the respondent a party and he, therefore, has never been a party to the proceedings on the reference and he cannot obtain any relief in a proceeding consequent upon the reference."

A Division Bench judgment of the High Court of Lahore also contains observations against the contention of the present appli cant. They were made in Collector & Chairman, District Board, Guaranwala v. Hira Nand (A I R 1929 Lah. 10 (2)). In that case land was acquired for a District Board, which applied for being impleaded as a party. It was contended that‑-

"as the party really affected by the award of the District Judge was the District Board which had to pay the compensation, it was competent to appeal. But the land is acquired by the Local Government, and this being so section 79, Civil Procedure Code comes into play, which lays down that suits by or against the Government shall be instituted by or against the 'Secretary of State for India‑in‑Council'. This rule must apply to appeal also. We, therefore, find that the appeals have been filed by a person not competent to do so . . . . . ."

Thus the appeals filed by the District Board were dismissed.

5. In this connection, reference may also be made to section 50 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Subsection (2) of that section is as follows:‑---

(2) In any proceeding held before a Collector or Court in such cases the local authority or Company concerned may appear and adduce evidence for the purpose of determining the amount of compensation:

Provided that no such local authority or Company shall be entitled to demand a reference under section 18."

The above provision shows that even if the land was acquired for WAPDA, it was not entitled to make a reference under-section 18 but was entitled only to adduce evidence for the determination of the amount of compensation before the Collector or Court. It has, however, chosen not to do so. The only grievance made on behalf of WAPDA is that no appeal was preferred by Government against the award of the Court. But it is" obvious that the record being what it is, it is not possible for WAPDA to make out a different case now merely by complaining that no appeal was preferred by the Government.

6. J. P. Singhal has discussed the position of the company or local authority which may be desirous of acquiring land under section 50 of the Land Acquisition Act. His observation was as follows:

"No local authority or company is compelled to proceed under the Land Acquisition Act. If it can procure any land which it is desirous to acquire more cheaply by private nego tiations, it is entirely at liberty to do so, but if it elects to set in motion the special powers given to Government for public objects it can expect no higher privileges and powers than those given to Government itself. Thus the interests of the local authority must be subservient to that of Government and it would be dangerous to allow private individuals, local autho rities and companies to interfere in a proceeding under Part III of the Act. Under such circumstances if Government declines to prefer an appeal the local authority cannot be permitted to do so except in cases of patent injustice."

He has referred to In re : Chairman, Howrah Municipality (9 CWN66). The above observations are more elaborate than the observations made by Aggrawala, to which counsel for WAPDA has referred. In the above observations it is made clear that there is no injustice if the company or local authority is not allowed to become a party because there is no compulsion on such company or local authority for acquiring land under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act. Cases of 'patent injustice' are not explain ed, but without going into the question it is pretty clear that acquisition having been made by Government, the authority for whose benefit it is made cannot be said to have privity with the owners of land and cannot claim to act as a party to the proceed ing held in respect of those transactions.

7. It is true that the Government has no objection to WAPDA being impleaded as a party, but for that matter the Government could leave the conduct of the appeal by its internal. arrangement to WAPDA itself if so desired. What is objection able is that WAPDA should come forward and criticise the past conduct of the case by the Government in not filing an appeal knowing all the while that its interest is subservient to that of the Government.

The application is dismissed with costs.

S. A. H. Application dismissed.

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