GENERAL MANAGER Vs. CHAUDHARY MAHOTBHAI HIRABHAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The sole ground pressed in these appeals by the appellantONGC is of the date from which the claimants would receive interest under Section 28 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 ("the Act" for short) on the enhanced compensation. No other issue is argued or pressed before us by the learned counsel for the appellantONGC. They, however, clarify that this concession would not bind them in any other land acquisition proceedings. In other words, question of market rate of the acquired land is kept open. We would, therefore, confine our discussion in this judgment on this single legal issue.

(2.) The facts necessary to decide this question are as under;

(3.) The appellantONGC, as is well known, is engaged in oil extraction and refining. This necessarily includes the activity of oil exploration. Not every exploration succeeds in yielding positive results. In other words, often times, even after initial possibility of oil being found, after prolonged efforts, the ONGC may find that oil or at any rate, sufficient supply of oil is not available and therefore, would abandon further exploration. For such purposes, the ONGC is required to occupy private lands, often times, initially, on temporary basis. In many cases, such temporary occupation may convert into final acquisition of land under the said Act and in some cases, it may not. In the present group of cases, we are concerned with a situation where, after initial occupation of land on temporary basis, the ONGC ended up acquiring the lands under the said Act.