THE WORKING FRIENDS COOPERATIVE HOUSE BUILDING SOCIETY LTD.versusTHE STATE OF PUNJAB & ORS.

                       [2015] 12 S.C.R. 1096


A       THE WORKING FRIENDS COOPERATIVE HOUSE
                     BUILDING SOCIETY LTD.
                                 v.
                 THE STATE OF PUNJAB & ORS.
B
                  (Civil Appeal No.8468of2015)
                       OCTOBER 12, 2015
         [MADAN B. LO KUR AND R.K. AGRAWAL, JJ.]
c        Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land
    Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013:
    s.24(2)-· Compensation was neither paid to the land owners
    nor was it deposited in the reference court - Therefore,
0
    compulsory acquisition of the appellant's land under the Land
    Acquisition Act, 1894 lapses in view of the provisions of
    s. 24(2) of the Act of 2013 - Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

        Allowing the appeal, the Court

E      HELD: One of the requirements mentioned in
  Section 24(2) of the Act is that the compensation should
  have either been paid to the land owner or should have
  been dEiposited in the Reference Court. The admitted
  position is that the compensation of Rs. 35,52,528/-was
F
  neither paid to the appellant nor was it deposited in the
  Reference Court. It was admittedly deposited in_ the
  Government Treasury of the State. The deposit was,
  apart from anything else, made only after the Act came
G into force and was perhaps with a view to get over the
  provisions of Section 24(2) of the Act and the prayer made
  in I.A. No. 4. Unfortunately, even the deposit of the
  compensation amount in the Reference Court on 26th
  June, 2014 does not come to the aid of the appellant
H
                               1096
WORKING FRIENDS COOP. HOUSE BUILDING SOCIETY 1097
           LTD. v. STATE OF PUNJAB

under any circumstances and cannot be taken as          A
"deemed·payment". [Para 20) [1105-B-D]

    Kamai/ Kaur v. State of Punjab (2015) 3 SCC 206
    - held inapplicable.
                                                        B
    Union of India v. Shiv Raj (2014) 6 SCC 564;
    Bharat Kumar v. State of Haryana (2014) 6 SCC
    586; Bimla Devi v. State of Haryana (2014) 6 SCC
    583; Sree Balaji Nagar Residential Association
    v. State of Tamil Nadu (2015) 3 SCC 353: 2014       c
    (Z) SCR 799; Radiance Fincap (P) Ltd. v. Union
    of India MANU/SC/0064/2015; Arvind Bansal v.
    State of Haryana MANU/SC/0260/2015; Rajiv
    Choudhrie HUF v. Union of India MANU/SC/0261/
    2015; Commissioner of Income Tax v. Vatika          D
    Township Pvt. Ltd.(2015) 1 SCC 1; Pune
    Municipal Corporation v. Harakchand Misirimal
    Solanki (2014) 3 SCC 183:2014 (1) SCR 783 -
    referred to.
                                                        E
                 Case Law Reference

  2014 (1) SCR 783       referred to.         Para 8

  (Z014) 6 sec 564       referred to.         Para 14
                                                        F
  (2014) 6 sec 586       referred to.         Para 14

  (2014) s sec 583       referred to.         Para 14

  2014 (7) SCR 799       referred to.         Para 15   G
  (2015) 3 sec 206       held inapplicable. Para 16

  MANU/SC/006412015      referred to.         Para 17

  MANU/SC/0260/2015      referred to.         Para 17   H
1098         SUPREME COURT REPORTS                   [2015] 12 S.C.R.


 A       MANU/SC/0261/2015          referred to.           Para 17

         (2015) 1 sec 1              referred to.          Para 18

        CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No.
 B _ ~68 of2015.

           From the Judgment and Order dated 24. 04.2012 passed
       by the Hon'ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana at
       Chandigarh in C.W. P. No. 2996of1995.

 C        Neeraj Kumar Jain, Sr. Adv., Gagan Gupta, for the
       Appellants.

           R. P Bhatt, Sr. Adv., Ajay Bansal, AAG, Jagjit Singh
   Chhabra, Gaurav Yadava, Shubham Bhalla, Ritesh Khatri,
 D Advs., for the Respondents.

           The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

           MADAN B. LOKUR, J. 1. Leave granted.
 E          2. The question for consideration is whether the
       compulsory acquisition of the appellant's land under the Land
       Acquisition Act, 1894 lapses in view of the provisions of Section
       24(2) of The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in
 F     Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and ResettlementAct, 2013
       (for short 'the Act'). In our opinion, the question must be
       answered in the affirmative and it must be held that the
       compulsory acquisition of the appellant's land has lapsed.

       The Facts
 G
        3. A notification was issued by the State Government under
   Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 on 12th November,
   1992 proposing to acquire a large chunk of land. This was
   followed by a notification under Section 6 of the Land
 H Acquisition Act issued on 21st July, 1993. Although, a large
WORKING FRIENDS COOP. HOUSE BUILDING SOCIETY 1099
  LTD. v. STATE OF PUNJAB [MADAN B. LOKUR, J.]

chunk of land was acquired by virtue of these two notifications, A
the appellant is concerned only with its land admeasuring about
14.90 acres.

     4. The compulsory acquisition of the appellant's land led
to proceedings for adjudication of the compensation due from B
the State Government. Accordingly, an Award was passed by
the Land Acquisition Collector on 22nd February, 1995 and the
compensation determined at Rs.35,52,528/-. For reasons that
are n9t clear, the compensation was not tendered to the
appellant but was deposited in the Treasury. The appellant C
challenged the quantum of compensation in the Reference
Court and when that was enhanced, the enhanced
compensation was deposited in the Reference Court.

     5. Feeling aggrieved by the acquisition of its land, the o-
appellant preferred C.W.P. No. 2996 of 1995 in the Punjab
and Haryana High Court wherein the above two notifications
were challenged. As an interim measure, the High Court
directed the maintenance of status quo and since the appellant
was in actual, physical, vacant and peaceful possession it E
continued to remain so in view of the interim orders.

    6. The writ petition filed by the appellant was eventually
dismissed by the High Court by the impugned judgment and
order dated 24 1h April, 2012.                                   F

     7. The appellant has challe~ged the decision of the High
Court in this Court and during the pendency of this appeal,
Parliament enacted the Act which came into force with effect
from 151 January, 2014.                                       G

Prpceedings in this Court

    8. As a result of the coming into force of the Act, the
appellant moved I.A. No. 4 of 2014 in this Court being an H
application for directions to the effect that the acquisition
1100            SUPREME COURT REPORTS              [2015] 12 S.C.R.


 A proceedings by which the appellant's land was acquired had
   lapsed. Reference was made in the application to the
   provisions of Section 24(2) of the Act as well as a decision of
   this Court in Pune Municipal Corporation v. Harakchand
   Misirimal So/anki. 1 It was stated in the application that the
 B appellant was in possession of the acquired land and that the
   respondents had only taken paper possession thereof. It was
   also stated that the compensation for the compulsory
   acquisition of the land was deposited in the Treasury and not
 c in the Reference Court and that the 'appellant has not withdrawn
   the compensation so awarded. The enhanced compensation
   was, however, deposited in the Reference Court.

        9. A reply to I.A No.4 of 2014 was filed by respondent
   no. 3 on or about 121h August, 2014 in the form of a counter
 D
   affidavit. It was stated in the reply that the entire acquired land
   was taken over by the Land Acquisition Collector and handed
   over to the then Estate Officer, Urban Estates, Punjab. The
   compensation of Rs. 35,52,528/- was deposited with the
 E Treasury of the State Government and subsequently deposited
   in the Reference Court by the Land Acquisition Collector on
   261h June, 2014. However, the enhanced compensation of Rs.
   2,91,77,074/-was deposited in the Reference Court.

             10. With regard to possession of the acquired land it was
       stated that the respondents are in actual, physical possession
       of the land. On this basis, it was contented that this appeal
       itself deserves dismissal.

 G          11. The respondents filed an additional affidavit in
       response to the application on or about 201h February, 2015.
       In the additional affidavit it was reiterated that physic~.
       possession of the entire acquired land was taken ove-r from
       the land owners by the Land Acquisition Collector and handed
 H     1
           (2014) 3 sec 183
V\IORKING FRIENDS COOP. HOUSE BUILDING SOCIETY 1101
    LTD. v. STATE OF PUNJAB [MADAN B. LOKUR, J.]

over to the Estate Officer, Urban Estates, Punjab in 1995. It A
was stated that the physi_cal possession of the acquiring
department was also reflected in the revenue records. It was
stated that in the reply to the writ petition filed in the High Court
it was pointed out as early as on 28th March, 1995 that
possession of the acquired land had been taken over by the · B
respondents.

      12. With regard to the payment of compensation, it was
stated in the additional affidavit that the compensation due to
the appellant was deposited in the Government Treasury on C
7th July, 1995 and the enhanced compensation was deposited
in the Reference Court first on 3'd September, 2004 and
thereafter on 24th February, 2012. It was further stated that the
original compensation awarded to the appellant, that is, Rs. D
35,52,528/- was subsequently deposited in the Reference
Court by the Land Acquisition Collector on 26th June, 2014
after the Act came into force.

Law on the subject
                                                                   E
     13. The law on the subject is now no longer res integra.
The leading judgment in respect of Section 24(2) of the Act
was delivered in Pune Municipal Corporation. It was
concluded in paragraph 20 of the aforesaid decision, thatthe
Award had been made by.the Land Acquisition Collector more F .
than five years prior to the commencement of the Act and
compensation had not been paid to the landowners/persons
interested nor deposited in the Court. It was held that the
deposit of compensation in the Government Treasury is of no G
avail. Consequently, there was no option but to hold that the
land acquisition proceedings were deemed to have lapsed
under Section 24(2) of the Act. Paragraph 20 reads as follows:-

      "From the above, it is clear that the award pertaining to
      the subject land has been made by the Special Land H
1102          SUPREME COURT REPORTS                  [2015] 12 S.C.R.


 A           Acquisition Officer more than five years prior to the
             commencement of the 2013 Act.. It is also admitted
             position that compensation so awarded has neither been
             paid to the landowners/persons interested nor deposited
             in the court. The deposit of compensation amount in the
 B~          Govi::lrnment treasury is of no avail and cannot be held to
             be equivalent to compensation paid to the landowners/
             persons interested. We have, therefore, no hesitation in
           ' holding that the subject land acquisition proceedings shall
             be deemed to have lapsed under Section 24(2) of the
 c
              201:~Act."

        14. Subsequently, this decision was followed in Union of
   India v. Shiv Raj. 2 It was held, after examining the Objects
   and Reasons for the Act that since the possession of the
 D
   acquired land had not been taken and compensation had been
   deposited with the Revenue Department, it could not be termed
   as "deemed payment" of the compensation as held in Pune
   Municipal Corporation. Accordingly, the appeals filed by
 E the Union of India were liable to be dismissed. In this context,
   it may be noted that reference was also made to two other
   decisions of this Court namely Bharat Kumar v. State of
   Haryana3 and Bimla Devi v. State of Haryana 4 which were
   to the same effect.
 F
             15. The issue again came up for consideration in Sree
       Balaji Nagar Residential Association v. State of Tamil
       Nadu 5 and the decision rendered in Pune Municipal
       Corporation and Shiv Raj were followed. In that case, it
 G was noted that there is a lack of clarity on the issue whether
       compensation has been paid for majority of the land holding
       2
         (2014) 6 sec 564
       '(2014) 6 sec 586
       • (2014) 6 sec 583
 H     ' (2015) 3 sec 353
WORKING FRIENDS COOP. HOUSE BUILDING SOCIETY 1103
  LTD. v. STATE OF PUNJAB [MADAN B. LOKUR, J.]

under acquisition, but there was no dispute that possession of A
the land under consideration had not been taken by the State
or any other authority. It was also noted that more than five
years had elapsed since the making of the Award. On this
basis, it was held that Section 24(2) of the Act was applicable
and the land acquisition proceedings must be deemed to have 8
lapsed.
     16. Finally, in Karnail Kaurv. State of Punjab6 the issue
was once again examined, this time a little more elaborately
but there was no deviation from.any of the decisions rendered C
by this Court. The additional submission made in this case on
behalf of the State of Punjab and negatived by this Court, related
to The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land
Acquisiti@n, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment)
Ordinance, 2014, whereby a second proviso was inserted in D
Section 24(2) of the Act. The Ordinance came into force with
effect from 151 January, 2015 and it was held by this Court that
the Ordinance had only prospective effect and was not
retrospective. Therefore, the period of the grant of stay or E
injunction by any Court from taking possession of the acquired
land would not be excluded retrospectively for computing the
period of five years referred to in Section 24(2) of the Act.
This issue does not arise in so far as the present appeal is
concerned since no argument based on the Ordinance was F
raised and in any case the Ordinance has since lapsed.
However, we are mentioning this only to highlight the fact that
the interpretation of Section 24(2) of the Act has been
considered by this Court from all possible angles.
                                                                  G
     17. The issue of retrospectivity of the Ordinance has also
been considered in Radiance Fincap (P) Ltd. v. Union of
/ndia,7 Arvind Bansal v. State of Haryana 6 and Rajiv
         sec
• c2015) 3   206
' MANU/SC/0064/2015                                               H
• MANU/SC/0260/2015
1104         SUPREME COURT REPORTS                 [2015] 12S.C.R.


 A     Choudf1rie HUF v. Union of India. 9

        18. On the issue of retrospectivity, we may only mention
   the view taken by a Constitution Bench of this Court in
   Commissioner of Income Tax v. Vatika Township Pvt.
 B Ltd. 10 It was held in paragraph 29 or the Report as follows:-

            ''The obvious basis of the principle against retrospectivity
            is the principle of "fairness" which must be the basis of
            every legal rule as was observed in L'Office Cherifien
 c          deis Phosphates v. Yamashita-Shinnihon Steamship
            Co. Ltd. Thus, legislations which modified accrued rights
            or which impose obligations or impose new duties or
            attach a new disability have to be treated as prospective
            unless the legislative intent is clearly to give the
 D          enactment a retrospective effect; unless the legislation
            is for purpose of supplying an obvious omission in a
            former legislation or to explain a former legislation. We
            need not note the cornucopia of case law available on
            the subject because aforesaid legal position clearly .
 E
            emerges from. the various decisions and this legal
            position was conceded by the counsel for the parties."

        19. Applying the law laid down by the Constitution Bench,
   it must be held that the appellant had an accrued right which
 F must be recognized by Section 24(2) oftheAct. The Ordinance
   which purported to take away such an accrued right would have
   to be treated as prospective unless the legislative intent was
   clearly to give it retrospective effect. As mentioned above,
 G this issue does not arise in the present case but is being
   mentioned only to buttress the conclusion arrived at by this
   Court in Karnail Kaur and subsequent decisions.

           20. In so far as the facts of the present appeal are
 H     'MANU/SC/0261/2015
       10
          (2015) 1 sec 1
WORKING FRIENDS COOP. HOUSE BUILDING SOCIETY 1105
  LTD. v. STATE OF PUNJAB [MADAN B. LOKUR, J.]

concerned, there is considerable doubt whether the appellant A
is in possession of the acquired land or whether the
respondents are in possession of the acquired land. It is not
necessary fo~ us to go into this issue at all. This is for the
reason that one of the requirements mentioned in Section 24(2)
of the Act is that the compensation should have either been 8
paid to the land owner or should have been deposited in the
Reference Court. The admitted position is that the
compensation of Rs. 35,52,528/- was neither paid to the
appellant nor was it deposited in the Reference Court. It was c
admittedly deposited in the Government Treasury of the State.
The deposit was, apart from anything else, made only after
the Act came into force and was perhaps with a view to get
over the provisions of Section 24(2) of the Act and the prayer
made in I.A. No. 4. Unfortunately, even the deposit of the o
compensation amount in the Reference Court on 26th June,
2014 does not come to the aid of the appellant under any
circumstances and cannot be taken as "deemed payment".

     21. Taking into account all the facts of the appeal as well. E
as the consistent view taken by this Court on several
occasions, we have no hesitation in coming to the conclusion
that acquisition proceedings in so far as the appellant is.
concerned lapsed with the enactment of the Act.
                                                                    F
    22. The judgment and order passed by the High Court is
consequently set aside and. it is held that the acquisition
proceedings initiated by the notifications dated 12th November,
1992 and 21st July, 1993 followed by the Award dated 22nd
February, 1995 have lapsed only in so far as the appellant is       a
concerned.

     23. The appeal is allowed.
Devika Gujral                                     Appeal allowed.
                                                                    H