1. This Review Petition has been filed by the petitioners seeking a review of the judgment dated 15.11.2006 passed by this Court dismissing Writ Petition (C) No.2956 of 1994. We have heard Shri Shanti Bhushan, learned Senior Advocate, appearing on behalf of the Review Petitioners at some length. He submits at the outset that without prejudice to their contentions, the petitioners are willing to deposit the entire amount as directed by this Honble Court immediately and that the purpose of this review petition is essentially to seek the expunging of certain remarks and findings that the petitioners were guilty of fraud, misrepresentation and suppression of facts.

2. Shri Shanti Bhushan next submitted that the judgment dated 15.11.2006 contains several glaring errors which are apparent from the record. The first of these, according to him is that the judgment refers to an affidavit dated 13.4.1992 sworn to by petitioner No.2 which he says was not part of the record of the present case and therefore ought not to have been referred to by the Court particularly when none of the parties had during the course of arguments referred to the said affidavit. Although he does not dispute that the said affidavit formed part of the rejoinder filed in the application being CM No.11559 of 2000 filed by Shri K. Narendra in the writ petition, he says it nevertheless should not have been looked into by this Court since ultimately this Court did not accept the prayer made in the said application. He further submits that since the petitioners did not have occasion to refer to the said affidavit, reliance on such affidavit by the Court to draw adverse inference against the petitioners is a violation of the principles of natural justice.

3.1 In order to appreciate this contention, the facts of the present case, although exhaustively narrated in our main judgment dated 15.11.2006, will require to be briefly recounted. The basic dispute concerns the payment of a sum of Rs.71.34 lakhs to the petitioners by the Land Acquisition Collector (LAC) in land acquisition proceedings concerning 153.98 sq.m of land at 6, Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi. An agreement to sell dated 25.7.1972 in respect of the property, of which the acquired land formed part, had been executed between petitioner No.1 and Shri K. Narendra. The petitioners were to build residential flats on the said property. A power of attorney had also executed in their favour by the said Shri Narendra. On the strength of the power of attorney, the petitioners had applied for and obtained an exemption from the competent authority under the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 (ULCRA), by an order dated 26.4.1985. Clause 12 of this exemption order contained an express condition that any portion of the exempted land required for road widening purposes would be surrendered to the government for which compensation would be paid under the ULCRA.

3.2 The petitioners building plans kept getting rejected for one reason or the other. Meanwhile, disputes arose between the petitioners and Shri Narendra over the enforcement of the agreement to sell. With the latter declining to execute the sale deed in their favour, the petitioners filed a suit for specific performance of the agreement. This suit was decreed in their favour on 5.12.1990 by a learned Single Judge of this Court. However, Shri K. Narendra filed an appeal to a Division Bench of this Court soon thereafter. When this appeal was dismissed on 18.12.1992, Shri K. Narendra appealed to the Honble Supreme Court. This appeal ultimately came to be allowed by the Honble Supreme Court by its judgment dated 24.5.1999 in Shri K.Narendra v. Riviera Apartments Private Ltd. (1999) 5 SCC 77 [LQ/SC/1999/589 ;] ">(1999) 5 SCC 77 [LQ/SC/1999/589 ;] [LQ/SC/1999/589 ;] . The petitioners suit for specific performance was dismissed but they were asked to be compensated in the sum of Rs. 3.25 lakhs together with interest @ 12% p.a. apart from being refunded the sum paid by them to Shri K. Narendra pursuant to the said agreement to sell.

3.3 The government issued a notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (LAA) on 5.9.1991 for acquiring 153.98 sq.m of land for road widening purposes. The petitioners made a claim and were paid land acquisition compensation in the sum of Rs.71.34 lakhs, ignoring the express stipulation under the ULCRA exemption order dated 26.4.1985. At this stage Anil Narendra, son of Shri K Narendra, filed a writ petition [C.W. 660 of 1993] in this court seeking a direction that the land acquisition compensation should be paid to him, his son and his father Shri K Narendra, who according to Anil Narendra was holding the property in question as Kartha of a Hindu Undivided Family. This writ petition revealed the entire sequence of facts narrated above, and questioned the very basis on which the land acquisition compensation was paid to the petitioners herein.

3.4 In was only thereafter that the government issued to the petitioners two notices. One dated 29.4.1994 seeking the revocation of the exemption order under the ULCRA and the other dated 4.7.1994 seeking the return of the land acquisition compensation wrongly paid to the petitioners. W.P.(C) No. 2956 of 1994 was then filed by the petitioners challenging the said notices. After his appeal was allowed by the Honble Supreme Court (as mentioned hereinbefore), Shri K Narendra filed CM No 11559 of 2000 seeking to intervene in W.P.(C) No. 2956 of 1994. The petitioners herein filed replies to this application to which the applicant Shri Narendra filed a rejoinder. To this rejoinder he enclosed as Annexure E, a copy of the affidavit dated 13.4.1992 sworn to by petitioner No.2, who is the Managing Director of petitioner No.1. He mentioned that this was enclosed with the petitioners own affidavit in reply to Anil Narendras writ petition. This affidavit was submitted to the LAC for claiming land acquisition compensation.

4. This then is the sequence of facts leading to the affidavit dated 13.4.1992 forming part of the record of W.P.(C) No. 2956 of 1994 which was dismissed by the judgment under review. The said application CM 11559 of 2000 remained pending throughout and came to be disposed of along with the writ petition by the judgment under review. Therefore, the petitioners are not right in submitting that the said affidavit was not part of the record of W.P.(C) No. 2956 of 1994 and could not have been referred to by this Court.

5. The argument that by referring to the said affidavit which forms part of the record, the Court has violated the principles of natural justice is, to the say the least, strange. When this affidavit was very much part of the record and is not a document that is denied by the petitioners, it is too much to expect that the Court will ignore it particularly when it has a direct bearing to the issue arising for determination. What this argument implies is that until and unless the Court draws the attention of counsel during arguments to a document forming part of the record and seeks explanation thereon, the Court cannot refer to such a document while giving its decision. The argument has only to be stated to be rejected. On the contrary, it was the duty of counsel to draw our attention to such document which was clearly against the petitioner, as has already been explained in the main judgment. It is even stranger to contend that the Court, by referring to a document forming part of the record, would be violating the principles of natural justice only because counsel did not choose to address arguments on the said document. We find these submissions to be wholly untenable and reject them as such.

6. The next instance of a glaring error according to Shri Shanti Bhushan is that the affidavit dated 13.4.1992 sworn to by Petitioner No.2 has been wrongly understood by this court as giving false and misleading information. The relevant portion of the said affidavit which has already been reproduced in the main judgment in para 17.1 is reproduced here for ready reference:

I, Inder P Choudhrie, Managing Director of M/s. Riviera Apartments Pvt. Ltd.. do hereby solemnly affirm and declare as under:

1. That the Riviera Apartments Pvt. Ltd. is the owner of the land as per records submitted situated at 6 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi..

2.---

3. That the deponent company has got full shares in above land and is entitled to receive the interim compensation awarded by the Land Acquisition Collector,Delhi, under the said award amounting to Rs.4,13,364/60p.

4. That if the title of the aforesaid land is found incorrect, I shall be liable to refund the compensation amount as paid to the Government.

5.--

(emphasis supplied)

Shri Shanti Bhushan submits that although it is undeniable that petitioner No.2 swore such an affidavit, the statement therein that petitioner No.1 is the owner of the land was a correct one notwithstanding the fact that there was indeed no sale deed in favour of petitioner No.1 in respect of the said land at that point in time. He submitted that a sale deed was not the only indicator of ownership. He referred to the commentary of eminent jurist Bowstead to contend that an irrevocable power of attorney together with an agreement to sell would by themselves constitute ownership and that a sale deed was not required for this purpose. Ownership, he says, could also be through adverse possession. He therefore contends that this was a glaring error committed by Court which according to him is apparent on the face of the record.

7. This Court is unable to agree with this submission of the petitioners. As on the date of the affidavit i.e. on 13.4.1992 petitioner No.1 was not the owner of the land in question. By no stretch of imagination could it be said that the holder of an agreement to sell is transformed into an owner even without the execution of the sale deed particularly when the dispute arising between the parties concerning that very agreement is pending in Court on the date of such assertion (i.e.13.4.1992) and has not attained finality. As already noticed on the date of petitioner No.2 swearing his affidavit, the appeal filed by Shri K. Narendra against the petitioners, against the decree in favour of the petitioners by the learned Single Judge, was pending before the Division Bench of this Court. This was to the knowledge of the petitioners, who were parties to the appeal. Therefore, the petitioners were fully aware that the litigation concerning this dispute was still pending and far from having attained finality. This did not require any expert legal opinion and did not admit of any ambiguity as to its implication. Therefore, as on the date of this affidavit, there could have been no assertion by the proposed buyer that it was already the owner of the property in question. It is nobodys case that the petitioners had perfected title through adverse possession. It is in this background that one has to test the assertion made by the petitioner No.2 on affidavit on 13.4.1992 that the petitioner No.1 was the owner of the land. The assertion was plainly false, and false to the knowledge of petitioner No.2. This affidavit, making a false statement on oath, was tendered by the petitioners to the LAC in order to substantiate the claim to receive the land acquisition compensation. We are afraid that the lengthy explanation given in the review petition and in the arguments of the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners that such ownership was implied on a collective reading of the agreement to sell and the power of attorney are not, in these circumstances, legally tenable. This court is unable to discern any error, much less an error apparent on the face of the record, in the findings rendered by it on the affidavit in question.

8. The third instance of a glaring error on the face of the record, as submitted by Sh. Shanti Bhushan, learned Senior Counsel, is in the findings in paras 17.4 and 17.5 of the main judgment about willful suppression of facts by the petitioners. According to the petitioners, there are two errors in this paragraph. The first, is that the letter dated 30.4.1992, which has been discussed in paragraph 17.4, was written by the petitioners to the Delhi Administration and not the DDA, as has been mentioned in this para. Here, we must agree that the petitioners are absolutely right. This is an error which requires correction and the court is grateful to the petitioners for pointing out this error.

9. The second error in para 17.5, according to the petitioners. is the finding of the Court that in their letter dated 30.4.1992, the petitioners made no mention about the ULCRA exemption order dated 26.4.1985. They say that this finding is patently erroneous since in para 3 line 7 of that very letter a reference has been made to the permissions that have been obtained under UL(CandR)..... We are, however, not persuaded to agree with this submission. A careful reading of this letter reveals that there is absolutely no reference whatsoever to the exemption order dated 26.4.1985 issued under the ULCRA. That exemption order is critical for determining the right of the petitioners herein to receive land acquisition compensation. The petitioners repeated assertion that line 7 in para 3 of the said letter refers to permissions under the L(CandR) and that therefore there was no suppression of this material document and its contents is, to say the least, unconvincing. There is a world of difference between vaguely referring to permissions under the ULCRA and specifically mentioning the exemption order dated 26.4.1985 under the ULCRA. The petitioners knew fully well that Clause 12 of this exemption order dated 26.4.1985 mandated the surrender of land for road widening purposes and the award of compensation for such land under the ULCRA. Not mentioning this exemption order in their letter dated 30.4.1992 tantamounted to willful suppression of a material document/fact.

10. Also, the petitioners conveniently do not refer to para 2 of the subsequent letter dated 12.5.1992 which states as under:

having obtained sanction of plans from all concerned authorities including U.L.(CandR), the LandDO etc., we are fully entitled to receive the entire compensation that your honour may grant in respect of the acquisition of a part of the land acquired for road widening.

If nothing, the above statement in the letter dated 12.5.1992 is a complete give away that the petitioners were misleading the authorities into granting them compensation under the LAA whereas they were fully aware that they entitled, in terms of the ULCRA exemption order dated 26.4.1985, only to compensation under the ULCRA. We reiterate our findings in Para 17.1 to 17.8 of the judgment dated 15.11.2006 and hold that they do not suffer from any error much less an error apparent on the face of the record.

11. Fourthly, Mr. Shanti Bhushan took umbrage at the findings of this Court in para 17.7 that there was no mention in the letters written by the petitioners to the authorities about the pending litigation between the parties. He referred to the opening line of para 2 of the letter dated 12.5.1992 which talks of the petitioners having obtained a decree from the Delhi High Court dated 5.12.1990.... This according to him was a reference to the litigation between the parties. We are unable to agree. As already noticed, there was litigation pending between the parties arising from the agreement to sell on the date that letter dated 12.5.1992 was written to the LAC by the petitioners. While the petitioners referred to the decree dated 5.12.1990 by the High Court in their favour, they omitted referring to the appeal filed by Shri Narendra against that decree, which appeal was pending before the Division Bench of this Court as on that day, i.e. 12.5.1992. Therefore, the litigation which was pending as on the date of the said letter was indeed not mentioned in the said letter. It hardly needs to be stated that whenever the LAC who has made an award is informed of any pending dispute concerning title to the property, such LAC is mandated by Sections 30 and 31 of the LAA to refer such dispute to the Civil Court for determination as to who should receive the compensation amount determined by the award. By not referring to this pending dispute, the LAA was mislead into awarding the entire amount of compensation to the petitioners. Therefore, we reiterate the findings given by us in para 17.7 of the judgment and reject the contention of the review petitioners in this regard.

12. Lastly, it is submitted that the power of attorney gave the petitioners very wide powers which would include the power to receive land acquisition compensation in respect of the land in question. It was repeatedly urged by Shri Shanti Bhushan that the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court in K. Narendra v. Riviera Apartments Private Ltd (supra) did not hold the agreement to sell between the parties to be invalid or void. Therefore the rights that had accrued to the petitioners under that agreement would still be enforceable. In other words, the effect of the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court could not be the deemed revocation of the power of attorney from a retrospective date nullifying all acts done under it.

13. In the main judgment dated 15.11.2006, we have discussed in detail in paras 22 to 24 the effect of the judgment of the Honble Supreme Court in K. Narendra v. Riviera Apartments P Ltd. We find nothing therein which calls for a review. We are unable to accept the submissions of the petitioners that the agreement to sell remains enforceable for the purposes of the petitioners receiving land acquisition compensation, notwithstanding the fact that the said judgment of the Honble Supreme Court dismisses their suit for specific performance of that very agreement. The main judgment has also, in paras 9 to 15, 25 and 26, elaborately dealt with the submissions arising out of the plea under the ULCRA. The petitioners have not made out any ground for a review of the said findings.

14. Apart from the error in para 17.4 in line No.7, where the words Delhi Development Authority should read as Delhi Administration, which we accordingly correct, we find no other error warranting a review of the judgment dated 15.11.2006. We accordingly dismiss the review petition.