MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN, J.----A Scheme, known as the University Campus Scheme, was published in the Gazette on 31st March 1954 under section 36 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922. The Scheme was sanctioned under section 41 of the Act by the Provincial Government on the 24th of January 1957. The Land Acquisition Collector made an award on the 20th of September 1960. A supplementary award, which related to the land of the petitioners, was announced by the Collector on the 29th of-- October 1962 under section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act. The petitioners were admittedly not present when the award was made.
2. About eight months after the making of the award, notices were sent to the petitioners on the 14th of June 1963 under section 12 of Act I of 1894. They were received by one Inayat Ullah, Mukhtar of Mst. Mah-i-Anwar, petitioner No. 2. On the 5th of July 1963, Inyat Ullah communicated these notices to all, the petitioners on the 6th.
3. On the 17th of August 1963 the petitioners filed objections to the award followed by further objections on the 12th of October 1963. Since the land of persons other than the petitioners had also been acquired, there were other objectors also who had been given notices of the making of the award at the same time as it was given to the petitioners.
4. On the 17th of October 1963 the then Collector decided the application of Sardar Hamid Hasan Khan under section 18 and overruled the objection that it was time-barred as he found that the application had been presented within six weeks of the receipt of notice. The petitioners naturally assumed that the order will be applicable to all the applicants as they all sailed in the same boat.
S. Sometime later, the petitioners received notices from the Land Acquisition Collector to appear before him. On the 27th of May 1:'64 the successor of the learned Collector, who passed the order on the 17th October 1963, directed that the orders of his predecessor be complied with.
6. The successor of this Land Acquisition Collector again issued notices for the 22nd of September 1964, to the petitioners and discussed their applications under section 18 on the 10th of February 1965 on the ground that they were barred by time since they were not presented within six months of the making of the award, which is the maximum limit fixed by section 18 (2) (b).
Hence this writ petition.
7. Malik Muhammad Aslam Khan, Advocate, who appeared for the petitioners, submitted that-
(i) since no notices were issued to the petitioners within the period of six months allowed for filing objections, the peti--tioners' objections could not be dismissed as time-barred as they were filed within six weeks of the receipt of the notices;
(ii) if this submission be not accepted, the award itself was vitiated on account of non-compliance with the mandatory provisions of section 12 of the Act requiring the Collector to give "immediate notice of his award to such of the persons interested as are not present personally or by their representa--tives when the award is made" ; and
(iii) that the successor of the Collector who disposed of the question of limitation in favour of Sardar Hamid Hasan Khan having passed an order for the implementation of an order of his predecessor on the 27th of May 1964 became functus officio as the reference would be deemed to have been made to the Court on that date and his successors could not review the order passed by him nor could they re-open the matter regard--ing the reference.
8. Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf Advocate, who appeared for the respondents, contended that notices for 29th October 1962, i.e. The date on which the award was made, bad been duly issued and were affixed on the Notice Board in the office of the Union Council of the area and that this was enough compliance by virtue of section 45 of the Act. He claimed that section 12 (2) was, therefore, not attracted to the facts of the case and the petitioners would be deemed to be fixed with the knowledge of the date on which the award was to be pronounced. We went through section 45 with the learned counsel for the respondents and asked him to inform us
(a) if the record gave any indication of any effort having been made to serve the persons named in the notice per--sonally ?
(b) if it was so it found impracticable to effect personal service ?
(c) if such person was not found, was any effort made to serve the notices on any adult male member of the family residing with the addressee ?
(d) failing that, was the notice axed on the outer door of the house, or, was it affixed in some conspicuous place in the office of the Collector and in some conspicuous part of the land to be acquired ?
The answer to all these was in the negative. We went through the record brought by the representative of the Trust ourselves and found that none of these requirements of section 45 had been complied with, and that the only thing that was alleged to have been done was that the notices were affixed on the Notice Board of the Union Council. This action is not authorised by anything contained in section 45 of the Act, and notices disposed of in this manner cannot under the law be deemed to have been served upon the addressees much less held to be properly served. It is an accepted principle of law that if a Statute requires some thing to be done and also prescribes the mode for doing it, the require--ments of law can be fulfilled only by doing the act in the manner prescribed.
9. We need not dilate upon the necessity of strict construc--petition of provisions regarding service of notice because the very reason for the issuance of notices is to inform and notify the addressees of the date of hearing so as to enable them to appear personally or through representative before the Collector, so that C they may, if they are dissatisfied with the award, take necessary steps under section 18 for having the case referred to a Court. Any course adopted by a process-server which detracts from this object cannot be countenanced.
10. We therefore, find that no notice was served upon the petitioners for appearance before the Collector on the 29th of October 1962, when the supplementary award, impugned before us, was announced by him.
11. Having found that the petitioners had no notice of the date on which the award was to be made and that they were not present on that date either, we come to the next question as to the date when were they notified of the making of the award. We have gone through the record, and it is not denied by learned counsel for the respondents either, that the notices under section 12 were issued for the first time on the 14th of June 1963, and were served upon one Inayat Ullah, who was Mukhtar only for Mst. Mah-i-Anwar, on the 5th of July 1963. It is admitted by learned counsel for the petitioners 'that this Inayat Ullah communicated the notice to all the petitioners on the 6th of July 1963. Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act entitles a person interested, who has not accepted the award, to apply to the Collector in writing praying that the matter may be referred by the latter for the determination of the Court. The proviso to this section fixes the period of limitation within which such an application shall be made. Clause (a) of this proviso deals with the case where the person concerned was present or was represented before the Collector when the award was made, clause (b) deals with other cases and it is under this clause that the present case will fall. It provides that :- "(b) in other cases, within six weeks of the receipt of the notice from the Collector under section 12, subsection (2) or within six months from the date of the Collector's award, whichever period shall first expire."
The language of this proviso makes it amply clear that the farthest point of time before which such a person must file an application to the Collector for reference to the Court is six months from the date of the making of the award. In case a notice has been served under section 12 at any period of time within four and a half months of the making of the award the person aggrieved will be entitled to make his application within six weeks after it. If the notice, however, is served after the said four and a half months have expired, then the person aggrieved can file his application within six months of the making of the award irrespective of the date on which the notice is received by him.
Six months is, therefore, the maximum period.
12. In the present case, the supplementary award was made on the 29 of October 1962, while the notices were sent to the petitioners on the 14 of June 1963, i.e. More than seven and a half months after the date when the award was made. It was consequently made impossible for the petitioners, who are undoubtedly aggrieved persons, to present an application for refer--ence under section 18 within the maximum prescribed period of six months. The result is that they have been deprived of the remedy provided by the Act. They will be bound by the award which was made by the Collector although in accordance with the intention of the Legislature they were entitled to have it referred to a civil Court for scrutiny; they have been deprived from so doing by an omission on the part of the Collector to notify them of the making of the award within the period of six months so as to enable them to move under section 18 within the prescribed period. The Legislature never intended to clothe the Collector with the power of nullifying the provisions of the statute. This action would therefore amount to a fraud on the statute itself. The consequences which would flow from it would depend upon whether the mandatory provisions of section 12 (2) are directory or obligatory.
13. There is a string of rulings dilating upon the question whether a provision with regard to the performance of a particular, .Act within a certain limit of time is obligatory or directory, A study of these decisions, however, leads one to the irresistible conclusion that Courts have, as far as possible, refrained from laying down any general principle with regard to the director or obligatoryth th nature of period of time so fixed. It was observed by Lord Campbell in Liverpool Borough Bank v.
Turner (29 L J (Ch). 827): ---No universal rule can be laid down for the construction of statutes, as to whether mandatory enactments shall be considered directory only or obligatory, with an implied nullification for disobedience. It is the duty of Courts of justice to try to get at the real intention of the Legislature by carefully attending to the whole scope of the statute to be construed.--- One has, therefore, to determine each case on its own facts and for that purpose has to look into the subject-matter of the statute with a view to determining the importance of the provisions of laws that has been disregarded and finding out the relation of that provision to the general object intended to be secured by the G Act. If the object can be secured even without compliance with such a provision, it could be safely dubbed as directory. If that be not so, the provision would be imperative or obligatory anal non-compliance with it would result in nullification or vitiation of the act which affects the rights of a citizen.
14. In fact, it is another manifestation of the salutary rule of interpretation of statutes that it is the duty of Courts to carefully scrutinise the whole scope of a statute with a view to determining the true intent of the law-giver. It is a truism that the intention of the Legislature cannot be treated as vain or left to operate in the air. It is equally true that the intention of the Legislature has to be gauged from the words used by it.
15. The Land Acquisition Act (No. I of 1894), as is clear from its title and clearer still from the preamble, is a ---law for the acquisition of land needed for public purposes and for Companies and for determining the amount of compensation to be paid on account of such acquisition.--- The raison de etre of this piece of legislation is, therefore, two--fold firstly, to fulfil the needs of Government and Companies for land required by them for their projects, and secondly, to determine and pay compensation to those private persons or bodies whose land is so acquired.
16. The exercise of the power of acquisition has been limited to public purposes. The principles laid down for the determination of compensation, as clarified by judicial pronouncements made from time to time, reflect the anxiety of the law-giver to compensate those who have been deprived of property, adequately enough in the sense that they are to be given gold for gold and not copper for gold. In other words, the compensation has to be adequate compensation. It is with this end in view that the association of the persons interested in the property with the process of determination of its market value by the Colloctor is a high light of this statute. A bare reading of the Act leaves one with the strong impression that one of the main intentions of the legislature was to ensure the protection of the rights of the: persons whose property was being acquired.
17. Section 11 of the Act requires the Collector to hold an enquiry with a view to determining the (i) measurements and (ii) value of the land, (iii) the compensation which should be paid and (iv) its apportionment amongst persons adjudged to be entitled to it. This section specifically provides that the Colleotor shall proceed to enquire into the objections raised by any person interested, inter alga, with regard to the value of the land.
18. Section 12 lays down that the award shall be final and conclusive. It also requires the Collector to give "immediate notice" of the making of the award to such of the persons interested as are not present when the award is made.
19. Section 15 lays down that in determining the amount of compensation, the Collector shall be guided by the provisions contained in sections 23 and 24. These two sections lay down elaborate criteria for determining the market value of the land. The pains taken by the Legislature in formulating these criteria and enshrining them in mandatory provisions of the Act are again indicative of the anxiety on its part to provide a fair value of the land to those who are entitled to it.
20. The whole of Part III which starts with section I& concerns itself with reference to Court and the procedure thereof. It provides an opportunity to a person dissatisfied with the award of the Collector to have the matter referred for determination by the Court. It is under section 18 that the period of time within which an application for such a reference can be made is laid down. The enquiry by the Court envisaged by Part III give s--ample opportunity to the objectors to prove their case, inter alias for enhancement of the compensation before the Court.
21. The analysis of that part of the Act, which deals with acquisition and compensation, given above, leaves us in no manner of doubt about the intention of the Legislature. The intention was -- to give the fullest possible opportunity to the interested persons to make out a case for adequate compensation before two successive tribunals, one of which represents the Government while the other is an impartial body, i.e. The Court. No provision in this law can, therefore, be so construed as to minimise this right much less justify a device which would deprive the interested persons of its most important part. The determination of the-- compensation by the Collector, who, as we have already, indicated above, is a representative of the Government, may not be necessarily free from bias in favour of the Government and against the person whose property is being acquired. Even ifs that be not so, a person may have a bona fide apprehension or belief that such is the case. The determination of the compensa--petition by an impartial tribunal, i.e. The Court, is therefore of much: greater value than the giving of the award itself and it is in line with the express intention of the Legislature taken note of above, it is for this specific purpose that notice under section 12 (2) has to be given of the making of the award to the persons interested so that they can apply for reference of the matter to the Court. It is with this end in view that the word "immediate" has been used to qualify the word "notice" in section 12. The reason is clear, i.e. To permit the interested persons enough time for moving for a reference, we will, however, not be understood a opining that the word "immediate" signifies that the notice shall be given the same day as the award is made; it would not offend against any provision of the statute if it is given within a reasonable time which leaves the persons interested with sufficient interval to make an application under section 18.
22. It, therefore, is a public duty which the statute imposes upon the Collector making the award to notify the interested persons "immediately". And it is axiomatic that if a certain time for performing this duty is prescribed it would be regarded as obligatory in all cases where injustice may be caused to those affected by the performance of this duty and who will be left with no remedy under tie law. One of the main objects of the statute being to determine the compensation payable under it, the whole purpose of the statute would be lost if a public functionary under it were to be permitted to omit doing something as a result of which the determination of such compensation by an impartial tribunal would become an impossibility.
23. There is no provision in the Land Acquisition Act for condoning delay in the presentation of an application under section 18. Section 5 of the Limitation Act has not been mad applicable but since section 3 is applicable the Collector has no choice when an application is presented to him six months after the making of the award but to dismiss the same as was done in this case.
24. In this view of the matter, the giving of a notice under section 12 is an imperative provision of law and read with the proviso to section 18 it becomes obligatory upon the Collector to give notice of the making of the award within such time as would. Leave enough respite to a person to file an application under, section 18 within a period of six months from the date of the making of the award. If such a notice is not given it would be a non-compliance with an obligatory part of the statute and the result would be that the award given by the Collector would be vitiated and action under section 11 shall have to be taken afresh so that a new award be made.
25. We consequently accept this petition and declare the award as well as the notice to be without lawful authority and of no legal effect and remand the case to the Collector for pro--ceeding under section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act. The costs shall be borne by the respondent.