State of Haryana vs Hawa Singh

N.C. Jain, J.—This judgment of mine will dispose of Regular First Appeal Nos. 659 of 673 of 1986 filed by the State of Haryana and Regular First Appeal Nos. 2156 and 2157 of 1985 filed by the landowners as they arise out of common award of the Additional District Judge Jind dated 28.8.1985.

Agricultural land measuring 29.40 acres situated in village Shamlo Kalan abutting on Jind-Gohana Road and Jind-Rohtak Road was acquired by the State of Haryana by issuance of notification dated 27.4.1979 u/s 4 of Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter to be referred as the Act) for the purpose of constructing a drain known as Padana Drain. The Land Acquisition Collector by his award dated 23.8.1984 determined the market value of the acquired land at the rate of Rs. 20,000/- per acre for Nehri land as well as Barani land. The landowner sought references u/s 18 of the Land Acquisition Act and on references the Additional District Judge evaluated the acquired land at the rate of Rs. 25,000/- per acre.

The additional District Judge has enhanced the compensation by another sum of Rs. 5,000/- primarily after following the statement of Sidhu Ram, Naib Tehsildar Land Acquisition, P.W. 10 who stated on oath that the land Acquisition Collector in the case of acquisition of another piece of land in village Shamlo Kalan vide notification dated 27.12.1978 awarded compensation for Barani land at the rate of Rs. 20,000/- per acre and for Nehri land at the rate of Rs. 24,960/- per acre. The additional District Judge referred to the statements of other claimants as well.

After going through the entire evidence brought on the records of the case, I am of the view that there is absolutely no aberration in the finding recorded by the Additional District Judge particularly when there is difference of four months in the acquisition referred to by PW 10 Sidhu Ram Naib Tehsildar and the date of notification in the present cases. The Additional District Judge further evaluated both Nehri and Barani land at the same rate i.e. Rs. 25,000/- per acre may be in the case of previous acquisition vide notification dated 27.12.1978, only Rs. 20,000/- per acre, were granted as compensation for Barani land. Even otherwise, the finding recorded in paragraph 17 which is reproduced below by me is borne but from the evidence on record and, therefore no interference is called for in the State appeals.

"The acquired land is located on Jind-Rohtak and Jind-Gohana Road both. From the evidence produced by the State itself, it is clear that the price of the land was not less than Rs. 20,000/- per acre. This indicates the potentiality of the land. There is no other evidence on record to show that due to any other situational factum and due to other any environmental factor the land would have any other value or potentiality or advantage. The sale Ex. P-l relates to the year 1980 as already indicated above and can not be criteria to determine the value of the land. Similarly the mutations referred to by the respondent side were much earlier to the acquisition in question. So, the learned counsel for the claimants have reverted to the statement of Shri Sidhu Ram, Naib Tehsildar land Acquisition (P.W. 10) who has admitted on oath that due to acquisition in the same village the Nehri land was granted a rate of Rs. 25,000/- per acre while Barani was awarded Rs. 20,000/- per acre. They have argued that the compensation be awarded at a rate of Rs. 25,000/- per acre in the case in hand, because some of the land of petition No. 8 has been shown to be barani but actually it is Nehri as shown in other petitions. In petition No. 16, the land has been shown to be Barani but it is canal irrigated as it is shown in petition No. 11 and the same in position in petition No. 19. So in this way the claimants of all claim petitions are justified in saying that many parcels of the land have been shown to be Barani by the Land Acquisition Collector while they are in fact canal irrigated and many other parcels of the land are tube-well irrigated, while nothings such is shown. Therefore, these mistakes in the actual depiction of the kind of the land is clear from the statement of P.W.3 Dhup Singh, P.W.4 Mahabir, P.W.5, Hoshiar P.W.6 Harkesh and P.W.7 Darya Singh. Therefore, I am of view that the entire acquired land most of which is Nehri, is sufficiently located in the same vicinity, should be awarded at one flat rate and the Land Acquisition Collector himself has awarded such land at a rate of Rs. 25,000/- per acre. Therefore, the criteria mentioned in the statement of P.W. 10 Sidhu Ram Naib Tehsildar appears to be correct. The acquisition took place in the end of December 1978 and present acquisition is that of April 1979 and there is no other criteria available. Therefore, considering the statement of R.W.I, I fix the value of the land acquired to be at Rs. 25,000/- per acre at the time of acquisition at flat rate whether it is Nehri or barani. Hence the issue is decided accordingly in favour of the claimants and against the respondent."

In view of the aforementioned finding and the reasoning given by me, the state appeals are ordered to be dismissed with no order as to costs. However, the claimants would be held entitled to the grant of statutory benefits of amended provisions of Sections 23(1) 23(2) and 28 of the Land Acquisition Act on the enhanced amount of compensation which calculation would naturally be done in accordance with law by the Executing Court. Such a relief was granted by the Bombay High Court in Smt. Shakuntalabai Krishna Bhoyar and Others Vs. State of Maharashtra, . It was observed that the landowners are entitled to the benefits arising from the amended provisions even when no cross-appeals or cross-objections were filed by the landowner.

Before parting with judgment, this Court roust deal with the arguments of the learned counsel for the landowners that the landowners are entitled to grand of compensation on the basis of sale deed Exhibit: P-l as the same pertains to the sale of land in the village itself. I have gone through the sale deed Exhibit P-l which was executed on 14.5.1990 after more than one year of the date of notification. The sale deed being post dated notification is held to be irrelevant for determining the market value of the acquired land. Moreover by virtue of aforementioned sale deed, only two Kanals of land was sold for a sum of Rs. 10,000/- and the rate comes to Rs. 40, 000/-. In view of smallness of the size of land sold vide Exhibit P-l and in view of the fact that the sale deed is post dated notification, the same is ruled out of consideration. In views thereof, the appeals filed by the landowners are also dismissed with no order as to costs.