National Highway Authority of India v. Hem Raj

It is in the aforesaid background that NHAI has now taken recourse to Section 37 of the Act and has assailed the judgment dated 18.11.2021 passed by the learned District Judge.

#3. Submissions. 3(i). Learned Senior Counsel the appellant contended that:- 3(i)(a). The proceedings had commenced before the learned Arbitrator on 10.09.2015, whereas the award was passed on 22.12.2017. In view of Section 29A of the Act, which came into force w.e.f. 23.10.2015, the award was required to be passed within 12 months from the date of -4 2025:HHC:15792-DB entering upon reference. The award passed by the learned Arbitrator on 22.12.2017 was non est as the Arbitrator had become functus officio on that date. 3(i)(b). It was also submitted that Sale deed relied upon by learned Arbitrator pertaining to Mohal Jarol was for a very small area compared to large tracts of land acquired under the questioned land acquisition process. It could not have been relied upon for assessing the market value of large tracts of land. That learned Arbitrator has not applied deduction, whereas deduction to the extent of 50-60% should have been applied. 3(i)(c). Yet another point put forth is that the learned Court below failed to appreciate the fact that while enhancing the market value, the Arbitrator had wrongly taken into consideration the inspection report prepared by a retired Officer of the State Administrative Service. Provisions of Civil Procedure Code do not apply to the arbitration proceedings. Therefore, the aforesaid report could not be looked into. 3(i)(d). It was also contended that the Arbitrator had not followed the procedure & parameters laid down in Section 3G(7) of the NH Act. The award passed by him, therefore, -5 2025:HHC:15792-DB suffers from patent illegality and is required to be declared as void. 3(ii). Learned counsel for the respondents defended the award passed by learned Arbitrator as also the judgment passed by learned District Judge.

#4. CONSIDERATION. 4(i). Arbitrator – functus officio. In P.K.Construction Company & Anr. vs. Shimla Municipal Corporation & Ors.1, it has been held that provisions of Section 29A of the Act will not be applicable to the arbitration proceedings that had started before the Arbitration & Conciliation (Amendment) Act, 2015 (3 of 2016) came into force. In the instant case, the proceedings commenced before the learned Arbitrator on 10.09.2015, whereas Section 29A of the Act came into force from 23.10.2015, therefore, learned District Judge did not err in holding that the award passed in the present case cannot be held to be non est. 4(ii). Small tract of land/deduction:- A contention has been raised for the appellant that the sale deed relied upon was in respect of 0-5-19 1AIR 2017 HP 103 -6 2025:HHC:15792-DB bighas, whereas the land acquired runs in several bighas (19 bighas approximately). Therefore, the sale deed for small parcel of land could not have been made the basis for determining market value for the acquired large chunk of land. It was also urged that deduction in the amount should have been to the extent of 50-60% As observed by the learned District Judge, learned Arbitrator had considered the sale deed, No. 568 of Mohal Jarol for determining the market value, as it was the only piece of evidence of the rate of purchase of land, available before him. The sale deed, however, pertained to the year 2010, whereas notifications in the instant case were issued in the year 2012. Learned Arbitrator justly increased the value by 7%. This increase cannot be said to be excessive. [Refer Land Acquisition Officer vs. Raman2] In Spl. Land Acquisition Officer & Anr. vs. M.K. Rafiq Saheb3, the Hon’ble Supreme Court held that there is no absolute rule that sale instances of smaller chunks of land cannot be considered when a large tract of land is acquired. In certain scenarios, such sale deeds pertaining to smaller pieces of land can be put to use for