Madhya Pradesh High Court: Landowners get six months from learning of an acquisition award if no notice was served

A notification dated 10 January 2018 was issued to acquire land for the Indore–Dahod Railway Line.

The Land Acquisition Officer passed the award on 4 June 2020.

The landowners alleged that neither they nor their representatives were present when the award was made, and that no notice communicating it was served.

They claimed to have learned of the award when compensation was paid in 2025 and then filed applications for references under Section 64 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (“2013 Act”).

After the Collector referred the applications to the Reference Court, that court allowed the acquiring authority’s applications under Order VII Rule 11(d) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (“CPC”) and rejected the references as time-barred.

The landowners challenged those orders by civil revision.

Whether, where the landowner was not present when the award was made and received no notice of it, the limitation period for seeking a reference under Section 64(2)(b) of the 2013 Act runs from the date of knowledge of the award.

Whether a Reference Court may reject on a preliminary ground a reference referred to it by the Collector under Section 64 of the 2013 Act, without deciding it on the merits.

Whether a civil revision under Section 115 of the CPC is maintainable against an order rejecting a reference petition under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC.

Section 64(2)(b) of the 2013 Act provides for a reference application within six weeks of receipt of the specified notice or within six months from the Collector’s award, whichever period first expires; its second proviso permits the Collector to entertain an application within a further period of one year for sufficient cause.

Section 37(2) requires the Collector to give immediate notice of the award to interested persons who were not present or represented when it was made.

Applying Raja Harish Chandra Raj Singh v. Deputy Land Acquisition Officer, Parsottambhai Maganbhai Patel v. State of Gujarat, and Bhagwandas v. State of U.P., the Court held that, where no notice is served and the claimant was absent, the relevant limitation period is reckoned from actual or constructive knowledge of the essential contents of the award.

Under Khazan Singh (Dead) by LRs v. Union of India, a Reference Court must decide a referred matter and cannot dismiss it for default; the Court applied that principle to reject preliminary dismissal of a referred claim.

On maintainability, it followed the coordinate-bench ruling in Somli W/o Tersingh v. State of M.P. and treated the contrary coordinate-bench decision in Jagdish v. Land Acquisition Officer as per incuriam.

The Court found that Section 21 of the 2013 Act concerns pre-award notice of the Government’s intention to take possession and cannot sensibly trigger limitation for challenging an award.

Because Section 37(2) performs the post-award notification function corresponding to Section 12(2) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, the Court read down the reference to “Section 21” in Section 64(2)(b) as “Section 37(2)”.

It applied the Supreme Court’s knowledge-based limitation principle to hold that, if an absent landowner received no award notice, time runs from knowledge of the award.

It further held that once the Collector has referred the matter, the Reference Court must determine it on the merits and cannot terminate it at a preliminary stage; rejection of a reference is not an award unless it satisfies the statutory requirements for an award.

Finally, the Court followed Somli in holding that revision was maintainable against the impugned rejection orders.

Where the landowner was absent and received no notice of the award, the application may be filed within six months from the date of knowledge of the award.

A Reference Court must decide a reference sent by the Collector on its merits, and a civil revision under Section 115 of the CPC is maintainable against its rejection under Order VII Rule 11.

The impugned orders were set aside, the matters remanded for decision on the merits after hearing the parties, and all revisions allowed without costs.