The Apex Court on Shri Badru (since deceased) Through L.R. Hari Ram Etc. v NTPC Limited (formerly National Thermal Power Corporation Limited) & Ors, had granted the appeal that had been filed against the High Court of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla’s order and judgment where the respondent-NTPC’s appeals were dismissed along with the rejecting of the appellants’ cross objection filed in there.

FACTS:
The appellants being the owners of the land and the respondent No.1 being the ,who had acquired the disputed land for public purpose while respondent Nos. 2 and 3 are the State and the Land Acquisition Collector. The disputed land belonged to the appellants and the suit land was held by the State (respondent No. 3) 2 for NTPC ‘s benefit (respondent No. 1) in order to execute public purpose under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 ,leading to instituting of proceedings to determine the amount of compensation which is to be made payable to the appellants under Section 11 of the Act by the Land Acquisition Officer (LAO).
The appellants had received an award of Rs.3,87,383/¬ per bigha by the LAO for the disputed land , however, being aggrieved they sought reference under Section 18 of the Act to the Civil Court to determine the amount of compensation being offered by the LAO. The Reference was allowed in parts by the Reference Court(Civil Court)through an award favoring the appellants thereby enhancing the amount to Rs.5,00,000/¬ per bigha from Rs.3,87,383/-.Being aggrieved, appeals were filed before the High Court of Himachal Pradesh by the State and NTPC under Section 54 of the Act. And instead of filing regular appeals against the aforesaid award , a cross objection was filed under Order 41 Rule 22 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 , in the appeal seeking for enhancing the cost of compensation being awarded by the Reference Court to them. Eventually, the appeals faced a dismissal at the hands of the High Court followed by a dismissal of the cross objection by the appellants thereby upholding the Reference Court’s award. Being grieved due to the rejection of the cross objection, the aforesaid appeals were filed in the Apex Court.

ISSUE: Was it justified from the part of the High Court to dismiss the cross objection field by the appellants?

HELD:
The Apex Court opined not to examine the question regarding the justification of the dismissal of the appeals filed by respondent t upon the grounds that such appeals had been filed by the owners of the land against the rejecting of the cross objection and that no appeal was filed against the dismissal of their appeal before the High Court. The Supreme Court of India, while granting the appeals and setting aside the order pertaining to the dismissal of the cross objection and remanded the case to the High Court in order to decide it based upon merits.
The Apex Court further opined that the dismissal of the cross objections had taken place without any valid reason as it was mandatory from the part of the High Court to have separately examined the landowner’s issues before the High Court in the cross objection in order to figure out if any particular case had been made out upon the facts by the landowners for further enhancing the compensation and if so then to what extend hence making it legally unsustainable. 
Hence, the Apex Court granted the appeals while setting aside the appellants cross objections and remanding the case to the High Court for deciding the cross objections that had been filed by the appellants as per the law .

Read Judgment here:

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