SUMANBAI SHANTARAM BACHCHAV Vs. ARBITRATOR & ADDITIONAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a bunch of thirty Petitions filed under Sec. 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (" Arbitration Act ") that challenge a judgement dated May 4, 2023 (" Impugned Judgement") passed by the Learned District Court, Nashik. This judgement would dispose of all these Petitions, each of which relates to land acquisition for the same National Highway project.

(2.) The land parcels acquired in these cases are situated in Mouje Wake and Saundane, Taluka Malegaon, District Nashik. They were notified for compulsory acquisition for purposes of four-laning the National Highway No.3. The compensation declared by the Competent Authority in 2008 (collectively, the " Original Award") was in the range of Rs.95.00 to Rs.154.00 per square metre. Since there are multiple matters, to avoid any conflict of dates, no dates are being attributed to instruments prior to the common Impugned Judgement.

(3.) The Petitioners were aggrieved by the computation of compensation. They believed that the compensation as computed did not factor in the true value discernible from actual transactions that took place in the region and that it wrongly relied on the Ready Reckoner rates that were merely stipulations of benchmark for assessment of stamp duty. The dispute moved to arbitration under Sec. 3G(5) of the National Highways Act, 1956 (" Highways Act ").