Risal Singh & Ors. vs Union Of India
2009 Latest Caselaw 1141 Del

Citation : 2009 Latest Caselaw 1141 Del
Judgement Date : 2 April, 2009

Delhi High Court

Risal Singh & Ors. vs Union Of India on 2 April, 2009

Author: Manmohan Singh

*             IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

+                         RFA No. 661 of 1988

%                                       Reserved on : November 06, 2008
                                           Pronounced on : April 02, 2009

Risal Singh & Ors.                                   . . . Appellant

                   through :              Mr. N.S. Negi, Advocate

              VERSUS

Union of India                                       . . . Respondent

                   through :              Mr. Sanjay Poddar with
                                          Mr. Ramesh Ray, Advocates

CORAM :-
    THE HON‟BLE MR. JUSTICE A.K. SIKRI
    THE HON‟BLE MR. JUSTICE MANMOHAN SINGH

       1.     Whether Reporters of Local newspapers may be allowed Yes
              to see the Judgment?
       2.     To be referred to the Reporter or not?                 Yes
       3.     Whether the Judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes


MANMOHAN SINGH, J.

1. This is an appeal under Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894

(for short, the „Act‟) against award of compensation given by the

learned Additional District Judge, Delhi in LAC No. 110/1982, which

was a reference made to him under Section 18 of the Act. The land

in question is situate in village Peepal Thala in Delhi in respect of

which notification under Section 4 of the Act was issued on

13.6.1980, followed by declaration under Section 6 of the Act on

9.9.1980. Award No. 9/1982-82 was made by the Land Acquisition

Collector (LAC) on 5.8.1981. The LAC fixed the market value of the

land at Rs.8800/- per bigha. He also granted compensation of

Rs.2000/- for well, Rs.4800/- for trees and Rs.7000/- for boundary

wall.

2. In the Reference, the Reference Court enhanced the market value by

fixing the same at Rs.34,000/- per bigha as on the date of the

notification under Section 4 of the Act. Likewise, the compensation

for boundary wall, well, shops and trees was also enhanced. In the

present appeal filed by the appellant, the appellants seek further

enhancement.

3. Consideration of this appeal was deferred by passing order on

18.12.1997 because of the reason that the same issue which is

involved in this appeal was also pending consideration before the

Full Bench in RFA No. 9/1970. That appeal also involved the land of

Peepal Thala where notification under Section 4 of the Act was issued

on 10.9.1958. Said reference by the Full Bench was decided on

4.12.1988 and the judgment of the Full Bench is reported as

Rameshwar Dayal & Ors. v. Union of India, 77 (1999) DLT 1 (FB). A

perusal thereof shows that the Full Bench has fixed the compensation

at Rs.5000/- per bigha. While fixing the aforesaid compensation, the

Full Bench opined that for fixing compensation on the basis of

instances of sale available in respect of the same village would be

preferable and where such instances are not available, one has to go

to the adjoining village to find out the prevailing market price of the

land.

The Full Bench took note of three instances of sale from the

same village, which were available. One such sale was dated

10.9.1958 at Rs.4545/- per bigha. The Full Bench was of the opinion

that this was nearest to the date of Section 4 notification, which was

issued on 10.9.1958 and, therefore, made it the basis for fixing the

compensation of Rs.5000/- per bigha in the following manner :-

"8.... We are of the considered view that a fair market value of land in the present case would be Rs.5,000 per bigha. While fixing this price we have kept in view the fact that the last transaction which gives a rate of Rs.4,500 per bigha approximately is of a comparatively smaller piece of land. For this reason, we think that the price of Rs.4,500 per bigha could be evened out to Rs.4,000 per bigha. To this we add Rs.1,000 per bigha to account for the 14 month time difference between the sale transaction in question and the date of Section 4 notification in the present case. This gives us the figure of Rs.5,000 per bigha. The appellants will be entitled to receive compensation determined @ Rs.5,000 per bigha for their 1/3rd share of the acquired land."

4. In the instant case, as already pointed out above, the notification

under Section 4 of the Act was issued on 13.6.1980. We find from

the perusal of the impugned judgment of the learned ADJ that the

learned ADJ discussed various alternatives, which were put forth

before him, for determining the market value of the land. One

alternative which found favour with the learned ADJ was the sale of

land in the same village Peepal Thala itself wherein the sale price for

50 sq.yds. of land was Rs.30/- per sq.yd. The date of sale was

14.10.1971. The ADJ was of the opinion that the said plot was much

smaller in size as compared to 2 bigha and 16 biswas of land in the

present case and, therefore, some deductions had to be made from

the aforesaid price. At the same time, sale transaction was of 1971,

whereas notification was of the year 1980. Taking into consideration

both the negative and positive aspects, the learned ADJ fixed the

market value at Rs.32/- per sq.yd. in the following manner :-

"15.... Balancing plus and minus factors, and always realizing that there is scope for some element of estimation and surmises, in a case of given nature, for fixing the market value, and no preciseness in evolving out the market value, may be possible, giving a marginal increase of Rs.2/- per sq.yd., I fix market value of Rs.32/- per sq.yd. (Rs. thirty two per sq.yd.) in the present case."

5. The learned ADJ was of the view that more or less same market

value would be arrived at if one was to take into consideration

Award No. 102-A/72-73 in respect of the same village. In that case,

the market value was fixed at Rs.13,300/- per bigha by the Court,

wherein the land was acquired 14 years before the present

acquisition. Giving suitable enhancement thereupon, the trial court

was of the opinion that the enhancement should be roughly 2½

times and, therefore, it would be between Rs.30,000/- per bigha and

Rs.33,250/- per bigha. Adopting average thereof, he arrived at the

same value at Rs.32/- per sq.yd. and Rs.32,000/- per bigha. The

learned ADJ added Rs.2/- per sq.yd thereupon to which benefit,

according to him, the appellants were entitled to on account of