Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Nov 17 : High Court today accepted the belated appeal filed by the Government against the judgment of writ court quashing the award for acquiring the land for the purpose of much needed road widening for the purpose of flyover from Jehangir Chowk to Rambagh Srinagar.
Since the appeal is delayed by more than one and a half year as such, the Division Bench of Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice Sanjay Dhar while accepting the appeal imposed a penalty of Rs. 10000 for approaching the court at a very late stage. The bench accepted the application explaining the delay in filing the appeal and directed the listing of main appeal for consideration.
The Public Works (R&B) Department through Executive Engineer, Construction Division vide indent dated 10.09.2004, requisitioned the acquisition of the land and the structures for the purpose of widening of Haft Chinar Indira Gandhi Road, Srinagar. The acquisition case was taken up by the High Level Committee (HLC) headed by the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, in which some of the owners of the structures did not surrender the possession to the indenting department however, the Collector, Circular Road Project, proceeded to acquire the aforementioned structures and the land under the compulsory actions mode and award of compensation has been passed in their favour. Aggrieved of the awarded compensation government has knocked at the portals of this Court.
The writ court disposed of their petition and quashed the impugned award dated 10.12.2010 issued by the Collector, Circular Road Project, Srinagar with further direction to the authorities to submit the case of the owners of property to the High Level Committee, headed by the Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, for fixation and payment of adequate compensation for the building structures and in terms of the package related to such structure in the form of providing residential plots for dislocated families.
Court also directed them to compensation in lieu of the shops acquired from the petitioners on the analogy of similarly situated shopkeepers and directed for submitting their case to the High Level Committee within a period of three weeks by the Deputy Commissioner, Srinagar and the Collector, Circular Road Project, Srinagar. Aggrieved of these directions the Government preferred the appeal against the said judgment which the division bench accepted today by condoning the delay in filing the instant appeal.
The DB after coming to the facts of the instant case and the record submitted by the Government immediately after the impugned judgment was delivered by the Writ Court, said, matter has been placed before the High-Level Committee in terms of directions of the Writ Court and was discussed by the High-Level Committee in a number of its meetings and ultimately it was decided that the judgment deserves to be challenged before a higher forum.
Thereafter the matter was taken up with the Law Department for according sanction for filing of appeal and the sanction was conveyed to the concerned Department on 17.05.2019. “As it generally happens in Government departments, it takes time to gather the records relating to a case from various officials and in the instant case, same thing has happened, as a result whereof the engaged counsel could file the appeal only on 1st of January, 2020”, DB said.
The events DB said, do exhibit that there have been procedural delays in making the decision for filing of appeal as also in actually filing the appeal before this Court and such delays are inherent in the Government offices/agencies which function at a slow pace. Court however clarified that there is nothing on record in the instant case that would even remotely suggest that there has been intentional or deliberate inaction or lack of bonafides attributable to the appellants-Government.
“The appeal raises important questions of law and as such, interests of justice demand that these questions are gone into application and determined on merits. Therefore, the delay that has occasioned in filing the instant appeal deserves to be condoned and the delay in filing the appeal is condoned subject to payment of costs of Rs.10,000 to be deposited by the appellants in the Advocates’ Welfare Fund within a period of two weeks from today”, DB directed.
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