- (1.) The controversy need to be settled in these five civil revision petitions Nos. 1601, 1602, 1603, 1604 and 1605 of 1983 is the same and, thus, these are being disposed of together.
(2.) The prayer of the petitioners under Order 1, Rule 10, Civil P. C. to be impleaded as parties to the respective References now pending before the Land Acquisition Court, Faridkot has been declined by the said Court primarily on the grounds- (i) that they had made no application under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act (for short, the Act) to the Collector and (ii) there is no provision in the Act under which any land-owner can be impleaded as a party to a reference by the Court. It may be pointed out here that the un-controverted case pleaded by the petitioners is that the acquired land was form their respective joint Khatas in which they were co-shares along with the persons who actually made the applications under Section 18 of the Act. They also maintain that though the individual co-sharers who had filed and signed those applications under Section 18 of the Act did so as their authorised agents, yet even in the absence of such an authorization they are entitled to the be joined, as parties to the litigation pending in the lower court. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties I find that the whole approach adopted by the lower court is fallacious and the common impugned order deserves to be set aside.
(3.) It has repeatedly been ruled by this Court that if the property acquired is joint and the co-owners have no distinct and specified shares therein then a reference under Section 18 of the Act by one of the co-owners for the enhancement of the compensation awarded by the Land Acquisition Collector will tenure for the benefit of the other co-owners as well. In such a case it can safely be concluded that the co-owner who is wanting enhancement in the compensation was also acting on behalf of the other co-owners because their interest are joint and individual. Until the shares of the co-shares are specified the co-sharer filing the application under Section 18 of the Act will be deemed to be acting on behalf of all the co-owners in the property. Even an award passed as a result to such an application under Section 18 of the Act would ensure for the benefit of all the co-shares (See Clause Kehar Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1968 Punj 490, State of Haryana v. Bishan Singh 1981 Punj LJ 40 and Punjab State v. Globe Motors Ltd., 1981 Pun LJ 73). In the face of this settled legal petition, how can the petitioners who even in the absence of mentioning of their names in the Reference are entitled to all the benefits arising from the award itself be denied the right to be imploded as parties to the litigation at a stage prior to the passing of the said award. As per the observations in the above-noted judgments, the petitioners have virtually to be deemed to be parties to those References. Their innocuous prayer is only that their names be so mentioned. This cannot possibly be denied to them.;