1. WHETHER the Haryana Urban Development Authority is obliged to equate (and disclose) every original Khasra-Khewat number of the allotted site, before levying the additional price, consequent upon the enhancement of compensation of the acquired land by the Civil Courts? This indeed is the under lying significant question in this appeal.
2. THE case set up by the respondent-complainant himself was that plot No. 68 in Sector 24, Faridabad was initially allotted in favour of M/s. Pritam Singh and Sarwan Kumar nearly 25 years ago in the year 1969 for a sum of Rs. 11,250/- only. It was subsequently transferred in the complainant''s name in the year 1971 and admittedly he raised an industrial building thereon. Apparently, consequent upon the enhancement of compensation to the land-owners by the Civil Courts for the acquired land out of which plot had been carved out, the appellants vide letter dated 1st of August, 1978 demanded the additional price at the rate of Rs. 3.50 paise square yard amounting to Rs. 5833/- only. THE respondent patently defaulted in the payment of the said demand on the plea that he had completed the payment of the original price by depositing the last instalment of Rs. 1452/- on the 31st of March, 1978. Inevitably the original amount of additional price of Rs. 5833/- swelled by virtue of interest and other charges etc. thereon to Rs. 23150/- by the year 1990 when a demand notice dated 13th of November, 1990 for the said amount was served upon the respondent. Still this also was not complied with and another demand notice dated 26th of February, 1992 seeking, to recover Rs. 25,465/- including the impugned penalty of Rs. 2315/-was then served on the complainant. Challenging the same as unwarranted and against the principles of natural justice, the complaint was preferred seeking consequential reliefs including the demand to disclose the basis of the additional price.
The appellant-HUDA in stoutly controverting the complaint firmly rested itself on Clause-14 of the admittedly executed letter of allotment, obliging the allottees to pay additional price of amount of the enhancement of compensation of the acquired land by Civil Courts as may be determined by the appellants. It was in terms pleaded that the Land Acquisition Collector had acquired the land for development of Industrial Sector 24 of which the respondent''s plot formed part and thereafter a reference was made to the Civil Courts in which the amount of compensation was substantially enhanced. The said amount was paid by the appellants to the land-owners and after calculating the same and distributing it to the other allottees, to whom the plots were sold out of the acquired land the levy of the respondent-allottee was made. The respondent''s stand that he had paid the full price of the plot & was not liable for any additional price consequent to the enhancement of compensation by the Civil Courts was firmly controverted.
It is manifest from the record and the order under appeal itself that in the course of the proceedings the complainant took up a curious and specious stand that the appellant-HUDA be required to equate the particular Khasra-Khewat numbers out of which his allotted plot had been carved out and adduce evidence to establish the same. This plea was apparently entertained by the District Forum and consequent thereto Shri Parkash Chand, Kanungo of the office of the Land Acquisition Collector (RW1) and Shri J.P. Aggarwal (RW 2) were examined on behalf of the appellants.
3. THE District Forum on the basis of the materials apparently came to the conclusion that the original demand of additional price of Rs. 5833/- in August, 1978 had inevitably swelled due to non-payment and penalty to a whopping amount of Rs. 25465/-. However, it came to the conclusion that the appellant''s witnesses were not in a position to state as to which particular judgment of the Civil Court covered the particular part of the land bearing specific Killa and Khasra numbers which now exactly formed the plot No. 68 in Sector 24-A. THE observation was that it was imperative for the appellants to affirmatively establish on the record that the compensation for the particular Khewat Khasra numbers which formed the site of plot No. 68 had been specifically enhanced by the Civil Courts, Apparently holding this as a deficiency in service as defined in Section 2(1)(o) of the Act the complaint was allowed with the direction that the impugned recovery notices be withdrawn forthwith whilst declining the further claim of damages or compensation for negligent services.
Mr. A.S. Gulia, the learned Counsel for the appellants with usual vehemence had first highlighted the fact that the original demand was made nearly 16 years ago in 1978 and admittedly the respondent had defaulted in complying the same. It was the plea that he was now trying to take advantage of his own wrong by refusing to pay the interest and penalty. It was pointed out that the enhancement of compensation by the Courts was finalised nearly 22 years back in 1972 and the proceedings for enhancement were initiated a year earlier. The stand was that after nearly a quarter of a century of the original allotment in the year 1969 it was not the requirement of the services extended out by the appellants to equate each Khewat-Khasra number of hundreds of plots carved out in Sector 24, Faridabad. The firm stand was that it was neither a requirement of law or contract, and even-otherwise this would be placing an impossible burden upon the appellant which would virtually hamstring all its activities in developing land into plotted sites.
4. THERE is, patent merit in the aforesaid submission. The gut question is as to what broadly is the requirement of the services extended out by the appellant-HUDA and whether there is a patent deficiency therein within the consumer jurisdiction. In order to appraise the appellant''s stand one has to inevitably see it against the back-drop of the admitted conditions of the letter of allotment, out of which ''the relevant ones require notice in extenso:-
4) "In case, you accept the allotment, you should send the acceptance letter together with a bank draft for Rs. 1125/- in order to make 20% of the price of the above mentioned plot within 30 days from the issue of the allotment letter. The payment shall be made by a bank draft payable to the Estate Officer, Faridabad and drawn on the State Bank of India, Faridabad. In case of failure to deposit the said amount within the above specified period, the allotment shall be cancelled and the deposit of 10% as earnest money paid with the application shall be forfeited to Government for which you shall have no claim. 7) The possession of the site shall be delivered to you after the payment of 20% of the tentative price, if so desired. 14) In the case of enhancement of compensation by the Court, you would be required to pay additional price to be determined by the Department."
Against the aforesaid bilateral agreement, the broad spectrum of the methodology of development of sites and allotment of the same to the consumers by the HUDA may be noticed. Inevitably in discharging its functions under the Haryana Urban Development Authority Act the appellant first identifies and acquires land through the Governmental agencies under the detailed procedure of the Land Acquisition Act. After the taking over of the possession of the land from the Collector which is some times in hundreds and even thousands of acres it proceeds to develop the same. The area has to be levelled and the basic civic amenities of roads, sewerage system, lighting, water supply etc. are laid out. Alongwith it the plottable area is then carved into individual sites which are then offered to the public either by way of direct allotment or draw of lots or by way of auction and even through the discretionary quota. Inevitably whilst these proceedings go on the original land owners whose land has been acquired seek enhancement of the compensation through the hierarchy of the Courts under the Land Acquisition Act. The proceedings, thereafter pass through the mill of the original award of the Collector and the subsequent challenges thereto by way of references under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, to the District Court, and thereafter even the right of a first appeal to the High Court itself. That contentious matters are often carried to the Supreme Court is a fact of which judicial notice can obviously be taken.
It is because of the aforesaid protracted nature of the proceedings for the enhancement of the compensation of acquired land that the necessary conditions aforequoted and others are invariably incorporated in the letters of allotment. Obviously the process of development and allotment of land can not wait till the final conclusion of the enhancement proceedings which as already noticed may go right upto the Supreme Court and because of the heavy burden on the Final Court might well take a decade before the said Court only. It is for this reason that the price charged from the allottee in the beginning is purely tentative subject to the enhancement by the Civil Courts,
5. VIEWED against the aforesaid back ground it deserves notice that the appellants acquire and handle land in terms of hundreds and some time thousands of acres. In developing the same the original Khasra-Khewat numbers have to be necessarily obliterated in the process of development and urbanisation. The plots are carved out from the general pool of the plottable area irrespective of the original Khasra-Khewat numbers and a prescribed formula and methodology is uniformly applied for apportioning the enhancement which the HUDA is obliged to pay to the original land owners under the Land Acquisition Act. That is why the express terms of condition No. fourteen obliges the allottees to pay the additional price as broadly determined by the authority or the department itself. Neither in law nor in the contractual terms and conditions were we able to find any requirement, that each individual plot holder''s site must be equated with very original Khasra and Khewat number before the additional price consequent upon the enhancement of compensation can be levied. This indeed would be a Counsel of perfection impossible to execute in actual practice. Laying such a burden or onus on the appellant HUDA would in our view be unsustainable, and learned Counsel for the appellants is not far wrong that such a finical requirement would place an onus beyond the possibility of its discharge and would stop in its tracks the laudable object of land development .which undoubtedly the HUDA has done with considerable credit within the State.
6. WHAT appears to be writ-large in principle and the light of the contractual terms is equally borne out by the precedent on the point. In 1989 (1) P.L.R. 524 ''M.S. Dutta and Others v. State of Haryana and Others'' the Division Bench on this point ruled as follows in no uncertain terms :-
"The allottee accepted the allotment of the plot subject to the terms and conditions mentioned in the allotment letter. The allottee is not only liable to pay the additional enhanced price of the land but also the costs of acquisition which includes solatium, interest and legal expenditure incurred by respondent No. 2 indefending acquisition and the Award of the Land Acquisition Collector at all the stages mentioned in the Land Acquisition Act. There is no requirement in law that the allottee has to be associated in determining the additional price recoverable from it. Of course, if the allottee disputes the calculation made by the Estate Officer, he or she can move the authorities for inspection of the record to ascertain how the additional price was worked out and if any discrepancy if found, it could be brought to the notice of the Estate Officer who will rectify all genuine mistakes but the allottee cannot insist that before assessing the enhanced price an opportunity of hearing ought to be afforded to him because this requirement neither flow from the statute nor on the ground of equity because the matter is purely of calculation of the additional price as per judgment rendered by the Reference Court, High Court or the Supreme Court, as the case may be. Yet again the Division Bench in 1986 P.L.J. 601, Charanjit Bajaj and Others v. The State of Haryana and Others held as follows:- "Under clause (4) of the agreement, the petitioners are legally bound to pay the enhanced amount of additional price demanded from them. Under this clause, HUDA has an absolute right to revise the price of the plot on the basis of the enhancement of compensation. Merely this fact that there has been some delay in depositing the amount of compensation in the Court by HUDA, it cannot be a valid ground to invalidate the demand made from the petitioners for the enhanced amount of additional price. The amount of enhanced compensation has been actually paid by HUDA and its burden must fall on all the plot holders. The contention of the learned Counsel, as earlier observed, has no merit."
In view of the aforesaid exhaustive discussion the answer to the question posed at the very out-set is rendered in the negative. It is held that the Haryana Urban Development Authority is under no obligation to equate or disclose the original Khasra-Khewat numbers of each allotted site before levying additional price consequent upon the enhancement of compensation of the acquired land by the Civil Courts.
Once the aforesaid conclusion is arrived at the appellants must inevitably succeed. But before parting with this order one must equally point out the parameters within which the consumer jurisdiction operates in this context. It is by now well settled that the HUDA does extend out the services of the land development to the allottee-consumers. However in the complaint directed against it the primal issue is the broad one whether there is a deficiency in service. Any other finical claims of demanding that every yard of the plottable site must be equated with the original Khasra-Khewat number are matter beyond the pale of determination in the summary consumer jurisdiction.
7. ENTERING into such an intricate thicket appears to us as both against the spirit and letter of the consumer law. Any such attempt in the laudable summary procedure before the redressal agencies is fraught with danger and can lead to a miscarriage of justice. The consumer jurisdiction is not a panacia for all the citizens ills and can only have play in the arena clearly demarcated by the Act. We are, therefore, constrained to observe that the District Forum erred in entertaining the complainant''s plea that the particular Khasra-Khewat number out of which his plot was carved out, be established and the particular enhancement of those very khasra numbers by the Civil Courts be determined and only thereafter he would be liable for the additional price. Consequently it entered into the slippery and uncertain grounds of adjudicating on the issue on the basis of the mere oral testimony of the appellant''s two witnesses. Such an exercise, if at all can only be done in a proper Civil or Revenue Courts on the basis of the requisite records. We may notice that the learned Counsel for the respondent Shri Arora when faced with the somewhat uphill task of supporting the order of the District Forum had himself primarily pleaded that the respondent may be allowed to agitate the lis in a Civil Court, if so advised.
For the foregoing reasons, this appeal must succeed and is hereby allowed. We are constrained to set aside the order of the District Forum and dismiss the complaint preferred by the respondent. As already observed this would not preclude him from agitating the matter before a competent Civil Court as he may be advised. We further decline to burden the respondent with any costs because of his consumer status. Appeal allowed.
