Allahabad High Court
State Of U.P. & Others vs Rukam Singh & Another on 9 September, 2015
Bench: Sudhir Agarwal, Brijesh Kumar Srivastava-Ii
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 34
Case :- FIRST APPEAL No. - 312 of 2011
Appellant :- State Of U.P. & Others
Respondent :- Rukam Singh & Another
Counsel for Appellant :- S.C.
Counsel for Respondent :- V.K.Singh,Hitesh Pachori,S.P.Singh
Hon'ble Sudhir Agarwal,J.
Hon'ble Brijesh Kumar Srivastava-II,J.
1. Heard S/Shri R.C. Yadav, Lokendra Kumar Srivastava and Praveen Kumar, learned Standing Counsels, appearing for State-appellants, and Shri Yogendra Kumar Srivastava, assisted by Shri Hitesh Pachauri, appearing for respondents.
2. At the outset it is stated by learned Standing Counsel that the manner in which L.A. Case No. 707 of 2001 'Rukam Singh and others Vs. Collector, Agra and others' and other large number of references were decided, an enquiry was conducted by Committee comprising of two Hon'ble Judges (Hon'ble Dr. B.S. Chauhan, J, as His Lordship then was, and Hon'ble Ashok Bhushan, J) in pursuance to order dated 05.03.2004 passed by a Division Bench of this Court in First Appeal Nos.980 of 2002; 981 of 2002; 979 of 2002; 982 of 2002; and 983 of 2002.
3. In respect to L.A.Case No. 707 of 2001 the said Committee recorded its findings as under:
"5. L.A. Reference No. 707 of 2001 Rukam Singh Vs. Collector
A huge area, including the land of the petitioner in Khasra Nos. 2661, 2645, 2649, 2650 and 2665, measuring 6.43 acres was notified under Section 4 of the Act 1894 on 9.7.1998. Section 6 Declaration was made on 6.5.1999 and the Award was made by the Land Acquisition Officer on 17.11.2000 assessing the market value of the land @ Rs.42,37 per sq. In Section 18, Reference was decided on 6.8.2002. The market value of the land had been assessed @ Rs.189.82 per sq. and other benefits, i.e., 30% solatium and 15 and 9% interest had also been awarded.
The Presiding Officer Shri R.K. Upadhyay has mentioned in page 11 of the Award that in the scheme land acquired under the Notification issued two years ago Award had been made assessing the market value @ Rs.153/- per sq. mtr. and after deducting 50% he had been paid @ 76/- per sq. mtr. However, without giving any reason why the same could not be awarded, the Revenue Court proceeded taking the base of Rs.153/- per sq mtr. and 10 to 12% enhancement per year to the value of the land. He concluded that in two years the enhancement was Rs.36.72 per sq. mtr. Thus, the market value came to Rs.189.82. There is no explanation why there could not be the deduction. No evidence was there to show that there has been an enhancement of 12% per annum for the reason that it is a matter of common knowledge that after issuance of the Notification under the Land Acquisition Act they are not supposed to purchase the land sought to be acquired. In absence of any positive evidence, it was not possible for the Reference Court to draw inference of 12% increment in the value of the land per year.
The S.L.A.O. had awarded Rs.1,94,037.36. The final decretal amount, on the basis of the enhancement made by the Reference Court, comes to a whopping Rs.2,32,04,476.18, which is almost 120 times of the market value as determined by the S.L.A.O.
It may be mentioned that Rukam Singh had been the purchaser for a value of Rs.14,000/-, subsequent to the declaration of award by SLAO on 11.11.2000, this purchase resulted in an earning of about Rs.Two crore 32 lacs within a period of little over three years, for an investment of a mere Rs.14,000/-, i.e. more than 1657 times.
Enhancement of the rate of compensation itself is 3 times without giving any specific reasons why there had been no deduction as had been made in earlier cases and which had been noticed by the Reference Court.
The then Presiding Officer of the Court, Sri R.K. Upadhyay is presently posted as Additional District and Sessions Judge (F.T.C.), Azamgarh."
4. After recording aforesaid findings, at the end, Enquiry Committee has further observed as under:
"In the cases decided by Sri R.K. Upadhyay and Sri K.K. Yadav, referred to above, Sri R.N. Gupta Advocate had been the counsel for claimants.
About 100 similar Land Acquisition Reference were decided giving the same market value as had been covered by the same acquisition Notification. Out of these 53 cases were transferred to Reference Court. The Land Acquisition Nos. were 31 of 1990, 35 to 37 of 1990, 18 of 1991, 15 of 1990, 20 of 1990 and 19 of 1990, 7 of 1987 and 10 of 1987. Purchasers, in these cases, had been mainly Smt. Rajni Verma, Shri Chandra Verma, Mani Khandelwal, Pushpa Devi, Smt Rani Goel and Sobaran Singh. These Awards had been made on the basis of the Award made by the Tribunal in Reference Case Nos. 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 of 1986, 39 of 1988, 4 of 1989 and 4 of 1991 belonging to Smt Kanak, Smt Neeta, Smt Mithilesh, Smt Raghu, wherein the Awards had been made under Section 11 on 9.9.1992, 30.9.1992, 12.8.1992, 18.12.1992, 9.4.1993 and 17.5.1999, wherein the Tribunal had awarded Rs.27.
S/Shri B.S. Rajpoot and G.K. Gupta the Presiding Officers, since retired. It is apparent that in the aforesaid cases, the original tenure holder was nowhere in the picture at the stage of final disposal of the Land Acquisition References, thus benefits of the decrees have been obtained by the substituted claimants with no right so to do.
Prima-facie, the nexus is obvious, and clearly, the officers, while disposing of the references, flagrantly violated the cardinal principles of law and equity; on the one hand by depriving the original tenure holders of the actual price of their land, while robbing the public exchequer to facilitate a select few to siphon off the tax payers money on the other: against all judicial norms and propriety, by conducting themselves in a manner to unduly favour the substituted claimants by exorbitantly enhancing the compensation in such cases, which leads to the inference that they were actuated by the motive of extraneous considerations."
5. In view of aforesaid findings recorded by the Enquiry Committee it cannot be said that the award in question passed by the Additional District Judge, Court No. 9, Agra and other awards can be sustained.
6. The appeal is, therefore, allowed.
7. Impugned award dated 06.08.2002 passed by the Reference Court in L.A. Case No. 707 of 2001 is hereby set-aside and award passed by Special Land Acquisition Officer is restored.
Order Date :- 9.9.2015
MVS Chauhan/-
