LAND ACQUISITION OFFICER Vs. JIVANLAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two appeals are concerned with the acquisition of certain properties for the Kalupur Relief Road under construction in Ahmedabad. The amount involved in these appeals is very small, but we are told that they have been presented because they involve a question of principle, namely the question of the extent to which it is permissible to separate the value of the land itself from the value of the buildings on the land for the purposes of comparison with sales and other dispositions of property in the neighbourhood.

(2.) IT is stated in Government of Bombay v. Merwanji Muncherji (1908) 10 Bom. L. R. 907, 912 F. B. that land is a marketable commodity of one description, and land with buildings on it is a marketable commodity of another and a different description, and that there is no known process by which, from the ascertained value of land plus buildings as an investment, it is possible to deduce the value of the land alone. With that remark we are in entire agreement. But the difficulty in this case is that it is not possible to ascertain the value of the property being acquired except by reference to transactions relating to property in the neighbourhood, and in many cases it happens that the comparison, owing to substantial differences between the nature of the structures on the land, or even owing to the fact that there may be no structure at all on the land, cannot be made except by attempting to estimate the value of the buildings apart from the land. As the learned Judge of the trial Court remarks, we have to do the best we can with the available evidence of transactions relating to the property in the neighbourhood. IT is not disputed by the learned Government Pleader that we are entitled to compare, for example, the price of land with buildings on it with the price of land without buildings on it. But his contentions ignore the practical difficulty of making any such comparison without coming to an independent estimate of the value of the buildings apart from the land.

(3.) AS to appeal No.82 of 1942, that again relates to open land, and once more it has not been possible to find any transaction except transactions relating to land with buildings on it. Having separated to the best of his ability the value of the land used for comparison from the value of that land together with the buildings on it, the learned Judge has come to the conclusion that Rs. 80 per square yard is a fairer valuation than Rs.70.He says that on a consideration of the evidence derivable from four transactions he feels that the land value of Rs. 70 awarded by the Land Acquisition Officer is rather too low and that he ought to put it at Rs. 80. On what principles an appellate Court is expected to differ from that conclusion and interfere is not clear. At any rate we feel ourselves entirely unable to do so.