GAJENDRAGADKAR, - (1.) THE following Judgment of the court was delivered by :
(2.) THIS is a group of seven appeals all of which arise from the same land acquisition proceedings in respect of which the Punjab government originally issued a notification under s. 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, on 23/03/1948. By this notification the State Government declared its intention to acquire land in the Ambala District for the construction of the new Capital for East Pun ab. No action was, however, taken in pursuance of this notification. Meanwhile the Punjab Legislature passed the East Punjab Requisition of Immovable Property (Temporary Powers) Act, 48 of 1948. Under the provisions of this Act the government requisitioned the land in question for the purpose of resettling the persons who were likely to be evicted from their fands as a result of the construction of the new Capital. The said land was actually acquired on 20/05/1951. THIS land forms part of a Jagir known as 'Singh Purian ' and comprises the areas of villages Mataur, Dhirpur, Saneta and Giddarpur in the District of Ambala. It appears that these villages originally formed part of the area covered by the Cls Sutlej States. S. Amrao Singh was entered as owner of the land thus acquired. His wife is Sardarani Gurdial Kaur and his son is Satinder Singh. The estate of Amrao Singh was at the relevant time being managed by the court of Wards. Pursuant to the provisions of the Act compensation was assessed by the estate officer and was accordingly offered by the State government to the court of Wards. The court of Wards agreed to the amount of compensation thus offered and Amrao Singh himself did not object to it. Satinder Singh, however, was not willing to accept the said compensation and he raised several objections contending that it was wholly inadequate. He also objected to the compensation being paid either to the court of Wards or to his father Amrao Singh, and in support of this contention he urged that since the estate once formed part of Cis Sutlej States, Amrao Singh was entitled only to its usufruct for his life and had no right to alienate or otherwise deal with its corpus. Satinder Singh's plea was that after the amount of compensation was finally determined it should be deposited in government Securities or alternatively a part of it should be paid to him as compensation for the land of his reversionary rights. THIS plea applied to the three villages of Mataur, Saneta and Giddarpur. In regard to the village of Dhirpur, Amrao Singh's wife Sardarani Gurdial Kaur claimed that she was in possession of the said village as it was charged for the payment of her maintenance by a compromise decree passed in her favour and against her husband Amrao Singh. She therefore claimed for herself the entire amount of compensation. Thus the contest about the apportionment of the compensation amount took a triangular form. At this stage it would be convenient to refer to the relevant provisions of the statute under which the present proceedings have been taken. In 1948 the relevant Punjab statute was East Punjab Act, 48 of 1948. Section 2 of the said Act deals with the requisitioning of property, and s. 3 empowers the State government to acquire requisitioned properties. Section 5 prescribes the principles according to which compensation had to be paid in regard to acquired properties. Section 5(e) provides that the arbitrator, in making his award, shall have regard to the provisions of sub-s. (1) of s. 23 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (1 of 1894) so far as the same can be made applicable. This Act was followed by the Punjab Requisitioning of Immovable Property (Amendment and Validation) Act, 1951 (President's Act No. 2 of 1951). By s. 5 of this Act s. 5 of the earlier Act was amended, inter alia, by adding one provision. This provision provides that where any property is acquired in connection with the new Capital of the State of Punjab compensation may be paid whether by agreement or by award of the arbitrator, either in money or in kind or partly in money and partly in kind, and where there is no person competent to alienate the property, or there is a person with limited interest in such property, or there is any dispute as to the persons entitled to receive the compensation or as to the apportionment thereof, the arbitrator shall make an award in such a manner or make an arrangement in such a way as may be equitable having regard to. the interests of the persons concerned; in other words, the principle of equitable apportionment which had been recognised by s. 32 of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 has in effect been added by this amending Act. In 1953 the Punjab Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1953 (XI of 1953), came into force. Section 24 of this Act repeals the two earlier Acts of 1948 and 1951, and after this Act came into force it was the provisions of this Act that governed the proceedings relating to the requisitioning, and acquisition of immovable properties in Punjab. The equitable principle which was inserted in the Act of 1948 by the amending Act of 1951 has been retained in the present Act under s. 8 (3). Section 23 (1) of this Act validates requisitions and acquisitions of properties there specified, while sub-s. (2) of the said section provides, inter alia, that acquisition of immovable property purporting to have been made before the commencement of this Act shall be deemed for all purposes to have been validly made as if the provisions of the said enactment or order had been included and enacted in this section, and this section had beenin force on and from the date of the acquisition. It has been held by a full bench of the Punjab High court in Colonel His Highness Raja Sir Harindar Singh Brar Bans Bahadur, Ruler, Faridkot State v. The State of Punjab (1) that compensation for property acquired under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 or under the Punjab Act of 1948 must be paid in accordance with the principles set out in those Acts and not in accordance with the principles set out in the later Act of 1953. This position is not disputed by either party in the present proceedings. Thus it is common ground that for determining the amount of compensation and its apportionment amongst the rival claimants the provisions of the relevant Act of 1948 are applicable though the proceedings were held under the relevant provisions of the later Act of 1953. In fact, the appointment of the arbitrator who conducted the proceedings in the present case was made by the State government under s. 8(1)(b) of the Act of 1953. We have already noticed that the provisions of s. 8 (3) of this Act were included by an amendment in the earlier Act of 1948 by the amending Act of 1951. Before the arbitrator the acquisition proceedings were dealt with in four different cases, each one being related to the lands in one of the four villages in question. On the contentions raised by the parties the arbitrator first considered two preliminary issues. They were: (1) Is Satinder Singh competent to object to the amount of compensation awarded in the case, and (2) Is the appointment of the arbitrator invalid on account of the agreement between the State and the Court of Wards about the amount of compensation payable by the State to the court of Wards. It appears that Amrao Singh contended that his son Satinder Singh had no locus standi in the matter, and that since he and the court of Wards had agreed to the amount of compensation offered by the State the arbitrator had no jurisdiction to hold any enquiry on the claim put forward by Satinder Singh. The arbitrator, however, rejected Amrao Singh's pleas, and held that he was entitled and bound to hold the proceedings and to consider the merits of the pleas raised by Satinder Singh.
(3.) THE arbitrator then proceeded to examine the merits of the rival contentions. He found that the property in suit was a part of Cis Sutlej States and so Amrao Singh had only a limited interest in it and had no right to alienate it. As a result of this conclusion the arbitrator held that Satinder Singh, who was the next heir, was entitled to contest the amount of compensation and was also entitled to claim a share in the distribution of the amount. In regard to Dhirpur land he held that Sardarani Gurdial Kaur was entitled to retain the possession of the village for her maintenance under a compromise decree and that both Amrao Singh and Satinder Singh were bound by the said decree. In the result the arbitrator determined the amount of compensation and directed that the entire amount of compensation in regard to Dhirpur should be invested in government Securities in the name of the holder of Manauli Estate with a charge in favour of Gurdial Kaur which would entitle her to its annual profits in lieu of maintenance. He also directed that on the death of Gurdial Kaur the amount should be divided half and half between the then holder of the Estate and the next heir or heirs taken together. In regard to the lands in the three other villages the arbitrator directed that the amount of compensation determined by him should be paid in cash, 3/4ths to Amrao Singh and 1/4th to the next sole heir Satinder Singh. THE amount originally offered by the government and ultimately awarded by the arbitrator were as follows: JUDGEMENT_908_AIR(SC)_1961Html1.htm It would thus be seen that the contest made by Satinder Singh in respect of the amount of compensation originally offered by the government substantially succeeded inasmuch as the total amount offered was increased by the arbitrator by Rs. 2,24,564.00. The order thus passed by the arbitrator was recorded by him in the four cases tried before him in respect of the four villages. These orders became the subject matter of several appeals in the Punjab High court. The State of Punjab preferred four appeals 67 to 70 of 1955; Satinder Singh preferred three appeals 42 to 44 of 1955; Amrao Singh preferred four appeals 59 to 62 of 1955; and Sardarani Gurdial Kaur preferred Appeal No. 55 of 1955. In its appeal the State urged before the High court that Satinder Singh was not competent to object to the compensation offered by the State and so the proceedings held before the arbitrator were invalid. It was also urged alternatively that Amrao Singh and Sardarani Gurdial Kaur were not entitled to compensation at the higher rates directed by the arbitrator, and that the benefit of the award should be available only to Satinder Singh, and it was contended that the amount of compensation fixed by the arbitrator was excessive. All these contentions have been rejected by the High court and the appeals preferred by the State have been dismissed. The State has not challenged the correctness of the decision of the High court, and so we are not concerned in the present appeals with the merits of the pleas raised by the State before the High court. In the appeals preferred by Satinder Singh the High Court rejected his plea that the valuation fixed by the arbitrator in respect of certain properties was inadequate. It also rejected his plea that the amount of compensation ordered to be divided between him and his father Amrao Singh should be deposited in government Securities. The High court held that though equitable considerations would be relevant in deciding the question of apportionment, it would be inexpedient to direct that the amount should be deposited in government Securities because in that case no one will ever be absolutely entitled to it. The High court also thought that since the State in whose favour the estate may finally lapse owing to escheat did not object to the apportionment made by the arbitrator there was no reason to interfere with the actual order. as to apportionment between father and son which the arbitrator thought was reasonable. In dealing with this question the High court took the view that the alleged reckless extravagance of the father on which the son relied was not relevant. In the result the three appeals filed by Satinder Singh were dismissed. The High court then dealt with the appeal preferred by Amrao Singh, and it confirmed the finding of the arbitrator that the property acquired originally formed part of Cis Sutlej States and that in regard to the said States the rule is now well settled that the Jagirs large or small in Cis Sutlej States are non-transferable and are even exempt from attachment as political pensions, the holder for the time being having only life interest in the estate, the corpus of which is to be kept intact so that it may pass from heir to heir and lapse in favour of the government in the absence of any legal heir. The High court also held that even if the character of the property was considered from the angle of the general custom of Punjab the same conclusion followed because the property in question was undoubtedly ancestral immovable property in the hands of the father qua his son and as such the father had no right to alienate it to the prejudice of his son without legal necessity or any other compelling reason. That is how the principal point urged by the father against the claim set up by his son was rejected and his appeals were dismissed. The appeal preferred by Sardarani Gurdial Kaur also met the same fate and was dismissed. It appears that all the three claimants urged before the High court that they were entitled to interest at a reasonable rate on the amount of compensation from the time that the property was acquired and they lost possession of it. This contention was likewise rejected by the High court, and it was held that under the relevant Act of 1948, it was not permissible to award interest on the amount of compensation, The result was that the decision of the arbitrator was fully confirmed and all the appeals preferred before the High court were dismissed. This decision of the High court is challenged by special leave by the three claimants Amrao Singh, Satinder Singh and Sardarani Gurdial Kaur respectively. The appeals preferred by Satinder Singh are Civil Appeals Nos. 396 to 398 of 1959; Amrao Singh's appeals are Civil Appeals Nos. 419 to 421 of 1959, whereas Sardarani Gurdial Kaur's appeal is Civil Appeal No. 152 of 1960. That is how this group of seven appeals arises from the same land acquisition proceedings taken by the State of Punjab in respect of the lands situated in the four villages already mentioned. We would hereafter refer to Satinder Singh as the appellant, Amrao Singh as respondent 1, the State of Punjab as respondents, and Sardarani Gurdial Kaur as Sardarani. ;