SPECIAL LAND ACQUISITION OFFICER Vs. LILAVATIBEN KODAR RANCHHOD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AS all the appeals arise from the common judgment and order passed by the Reference Court, they are being considered by this common judgment.

(2.) THE relevant facts of the case are that for the project of Dadhod Outside City Diversion Road, lands located at Dahod Kasba outskirts of Dahod city within the municipal area were to be acquired under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter to be referred to as 'the Act'). Notification under Section 4 of the Act was published on 11.10.1985 and notification under section 6 of the Act was published on 05.09.1986. THEreafter award was passed by the Land Acquisition Officer under section 11 of the Act on 26.06.1988 whereby, on account of different fertility, topography and location of the lands, he awarded Rs.8/sq.mtr. for the fertile land, Rs.6/sq.mtr. for Jirayat land and Rs.4/sq.mtr. for the other remaining land. As the lands owners/original claimants were not satisfied with the said compensations, they raised dispute under section 18 of the Act and demanded compensation of Rs.70/sq.mtr. and subsequently enhanced the demand to Rs.250/sq.mtr. All such disputes were referred to the Reference Court for adjudication being Land Acquisition Case Nos.283/89 to 304/89. THE Reference Court, at the conclusion of the references, awarded the additional compensation at Rs.45/sq.mtr. with other statutory benefits of increase in the market value, solatium and interest. It is under these circumstances, the present group of appeals before this Court.

(3.) HOWEVER, as the present appeals are continuous proceedings of the reference to be adjudicated by the Reference Court and we have called for the record and proceedings, we find that the only sale instance, which could be considered for the purpose of tracing the market value of the lands, is the document Exh.72 dated 20.06.1983, which is for the land bearing Survey No.754/4 paiki and the area of which is admeasuring 534.38 sq.mtrs. Another aspect is that the sale deed is prior to the notification under section 4 of the Act in the present case and, therefore, the same could be taken into consideration by the Reference Court. We are inclined to observe the aforesaid because there was no other satisfactory evidence either to applying the yield method or of any other awards passed by any competent court for the land of the adjoining area in the matter of land acquisition. It is also required to be taken into consideration that merely because the sale instances are of the lands, which are non-agricultural lands, the same itself will not be a sufficient ground to discard the evidence unless the Reference Court finds that the sale instances are not of the lands of the comparable area. The area in the present acquisition varies from 151 sq.mtrs. to 5059 sq.mtrs. and if the holding of each claimant is to be considered vis-a-vis the area under acquisition, the land acquired of about 40% of the claimants is not exceeding 700-800 sq.mtrs. Under these circumstances, we find that it was a case to consider the sale instances even after considering the character of the land of the sale instance as non-agricultural land. At this stage, we may refer to the decision of this Court in case of State of Gujarat, Through Special Land Acquisition Officer and Anr., Vs. Amraji Mohanji Thakore, reported in 2010 (3) G.L.H. 447 wherein there was sale instance of more or less similar area and, therefore, the court applied the principle of 30% deduction while comparing the price of non-agricultural land but the relevant aspect is that in the said decision this Court extracted the earlier view of this Court in case of Sardar Sarovar Vs. Patel Haribhai Manilal, in First Appeal No.2832 of 2006 to 2843 of 2006 decided on 09.07.2007 and it was recorded as under: "14. Before we proceed to examine the other aspects, we may profitably extract the views of this Court (Coram: J.M.Panchal and Smt. Abhilasha Kumari, J.J.) in the case of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited v. Patel Haribhai Manilal (First Appeal No.2832 of 2006 to 2843 of 2006) decided on 9.7.2007. In the said case, the sale instances considered by the Special Land Acquisition Officer were not proved and there was sale instance for allotment of the land by the Government to Anarde Foundation and the land under acquisition was also at Village Modhera. When the question arose for determination of the market price of the land in question therein, for the purpose of awarding compensation by the Reference Court, this Court observed as under at paragraph 12 :- "12. The principles governing determination of market value of lands acquired are well-settled. In Special Land Acquisition Officer, Davangere v. P.Veerabhadrappa etc. etc. - AIR 1984 SC 774, the Supreme Court has emphasized that the function of the Court in awarding compensation under the Act is to ascertain the market value of the land on the date of notification under Section 4(1) of the Act. What is ruled therein is that the methods of valuation are (1) opinion of experts, (2) the prices paid within a reasonable time in bona fide transactions of purchase or sale of the lands acquired or of the lands adjacent to those acquired and possessing similar advantages and (3) a number of years' purchase of the actual or immediately prospective profits of the lands acquired. The Supreme Court has cautioned that normally, the method of capitalizing the actual or immediately prospective profits or the rent of a number of years' purchase should not be resorted to if there is evidence of comparable sales or other evidence for computation of the market value. Applying these principles to the facts of the instant case, this Court finds that the claimants did not lead evidence of an expert nor enhanced compensation was claimed on yield basis to enable the Court to determine the market value of the lands acquired. The only relevant pieces of evidence produced by the claimants in the instant case are the sale-deeds relating to the grant of Government lands to Anarde Foundation at Ex.13 and to Umiya Kadva Patidar Trust at Ex.17 which will now be examined by this Court. Exhibit 13 is the order of Collector, Mehsana, dated December 4, 1994, whereby land admeasuring 501.66 sq.mts. forming part of Survey No.1119 of village Modhera was granted to Anarde Foundation pursuant to an application made by it for allotment of land for construction of office premises for development programme which was undertaken by the said Foundation in rural areas. A perusal of Ex.13 reveals that the land allotted to Anarde Foundation vide order dated December 4, 1994, was non-agricultural land. Initially, this land was allotted at the rate of Rs.40/- per sq.mt. HOWEVER, it was stipulated in the said order that the market value of the land on the date of order, i.e. December 4, 1994, would be one which would be determined by the Deputy Town Planner and the price so determined would be considered to be relevant market value. The record reveals that the market value of the land allotted to Anarde Foundation was determined at Rs.65/- per sq.mt., which is quite evident from the order dated September 21, 1998, passed by the Collector, Mehsana, produced at Ex.14. The other sale instance relied upon by the claimants is to be found at Ex.17, which relates to sale of Government land to Umiya Kadva Patidar Trust. Exhibit 17 further shows that the Collector passed an order in this regard on October 16, 1998 and the market value of the land admeasuring 186 sq.mts. of part of Survey No.1245 of village Modhera, Taluka: Becharaji, was determined at the rate of Rs.160/- per sq.mt. On re-appreciation of evidence on the record, this Court finds that the notification under Section 4(1) of the Act in the instant case was published in the official gazette on July 27, 1995, whereas the sale instance at Ex.17 regarding allotment of Government land to Umiya Kadva Patidar Trust was effected after publication of said notification and therefore, post notification instance should not be taken into consideration while determining the market value of the lands acquired as it is common knowledge that the prices of lands in the vicinity would escalate after the notification under Section 4(1) of the Act is published." 15. Further in the very decision, when the Court had to consider the market value, keeping in view the sale instances of the allotment of the land by the Government to the aforesaid Trust, it was observed, thus, at paragraphs 17 and 18 :-