Appeal, Recovery and Rules

In one line

Ninety days to the High Court, with a deposit if you are the one who must pay and a floor of one lakh rupees on what is worth appealing; and an unpaid award is recovered as an arrear of land revenue.

Section 173: appeal to the High Court

Who and when. Any person aggrieved by an award of a Claims Tribunal may, within ninety days from the date of the award, prefer an appeal to the High Court. There is no intermediate appeal and no appeal to a district court.

First proviso: the deposit. No appeal by the person who is required to pay any amount in terms of the award shall be entertained by the High Court unless he has deposited with it twenty-five thousand rupees or fifty per cent of the amount so awarded, whichever is less, in the manner directed by the High Court.

Note who the proviso binds. A claimant appealing for more compensation deposits nothing. Only the person ordered to pay must deposit, and the sum is capped, so on a large award the deposit is twenty-five thousand rupees.

Second proviso: delay. The High Court may entertain the appeal after the ninety days if satisfied that the appellant was prevented by sufficient cause from preferring it in time.

Compare section 166(3). The limitation for the claim itself, six months, carries no power to condone; the limitation for the appeal does.

Sub-section (2): the floor. No appeal lies if the amount in dispute in the appeal is less than one lakh rupees. The figure was "ten thousand rupees" until section 57 of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 2019 substituted "one lakh", in force from 1 April 2022.

Read the words: it is the amount in dispute in the appeal, not the amount of the award. An award of eight lakh appealed on a point worth sixty thousand rupees is below the floor.

Section 174: recovery as an arrear of land revenue

Where any amount is due from any person under an award, the Claims Tribunal may, on an application made to it by the person entitled to the amount, issue a certificate for the amount to the Collector, and the Collector shall proceed to recover it in the same manner as an arrear of land revenue.

Two routes since 1 April 2022. Section 169(4), inserted by section 55 of the amending Act, gives the Tribunal, for the enforcement of its award, all the powers of a civil court in the execution of a money decree under the Code of Civil Procedure 1908. Section 174 was not repealed, so the claimant now has a choice: execution by the Tribunal itself, or a certificate to the Collector.