Amarjit Singh vs The Tribunal Constituted Under the Town Improvement Act and others

I.S. Tiwana, J.—In these two Civil Writ Petitions Nos. 231 and 232 of 1984 under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners impugn the same common award of the Tribunal constituted under the Punjab To"n Improvement Act, 1922, primarily on the ground that it suffers from the errors aparrent on the face of the record and thus deserves to be set aside. The specific allegation levelled in this behalf is that though the lands of the petitioners are similarly situated as that of Manjit Singh and others in whose case the said Tribunal has awarded (Copy Annexure P. 2 in each petition) compensation at the rate of Rs. 1000/- per marla on the basis of the same evidence which the petitioners led in support of their claim, yet they have been awarded compensation at the rate of Rs 625/- per marla. This assertion made in the petition has neither been denied nor any point of distinction in the matter of location of the two acquired lands has been pointed out by the respondent Trust. The petitioners produced a copy of the award in Manjit Singh and othes'' case as Exhibit A. 2 before the Tribunal

I have perused to the judgment of the Tribunal and find that it has made an observation in para 11 of the impugned award that the lands of the petitioners are not similarly situated as that of Manjit Singh and others, yet it has failed to point out any substantial or justifiable distinction. All that has been said in this regard is that firstly, the copy of the award of the Tribunal in Manjit Singh''s case reveals that compensation at the rate of Rs 1,000/- per marla was awarded by taking into considertion, the contiguity of that acquired land with the land of Mohinder Singh and others--subject matter of sale deeds Exhibits A. 2 to A. 4--and secondly, the extent of the acquired land in these two cases is different from that acquired in the case Manjit Singh and others. These points of distinctions pointed out by the Tribunal, for not following the judgment in Manjit Singh''s case, on the face of it, are perverse for the reasons (i) that the same Sale instances, i e, Exhibits A 2 to A.4 which have been produced and relied upon by the Tribunal in Manjit Singh''s case, have been produced and proved by the petitioners in the instant cases and (ii) that the extent of land landowner owns can never be the governing factor to assess the market value of a particular acquired land Market value of land essentially does net vary with the extent of land owned by a particular Individual. It is thus abundantly established as is claimed by the learned counsel for the petitioners that the Tribunal has declined to follow or go by its earlier award in Manjit Singh''s case for no good or substantial reasons and has rather distinguished that judgment on purely finical grounds. I am thus satisfied that the award of the Tribunal does suffer from a patent error and cannot be sustained.

In the light of the discussion above, I allow these petitions and direct that the petitioners too would be paid compensation at the rate of 1000/- per marla as was awarded by the Tribunal in Manjit Singh''s case, copy of which award is Annexure P. 2. The petitioners are also held entitled to the costs of these petitions which I determine at Rs. 300/- in each case.