K V ELDHOSE Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE claimants are in appeal being not satisfied with the compensation fixed by the reference court. In this appeal, there is claim for enhancement in land value, for compensation for injurious affection on account of severence of the unacquired portion of the lands belonging to the claimants and also towards value of improvements.

(2.) WE shall deal with the question of land value first. Reliance is placed mostly by the appellants on Ext.A5 document which reflected a land value of Rs.12,000/- per Are. The court below did not place reliance on Ext. A5 taking the view that there is a distance of two kilometres between the property covered by Ext.A5 and the acquired property. In fact the court below did not place reliance on any of the documents relied on by the claimants in support of their claim for enhancement in land value. Ultimately what the court below did was to do guess work and re-fix the land value at Rs.6000/- per Are. Having re-appreciated the evidence pertaining to land value we feel that to a certain extent Ext.A5 can be relied on and the value of the land in that area at the relevant time can be re-fixed at Rs.7500/- per Are. However, we are not inclined to award land value to the appellants at that rate. WE notice that the property under acquisition is a fairly large extent. Considering the largeness of the extent we become inclined to deduct 10%. Thus we re-fix the value of land under acquisition Rs.6750/- per Are. This means that the appellant will have to be awarded at the rate of 750/- per Are more than what is awarded by the reference court. It is accordingly awarded.