MAHARASHTRA KRISHNA VALLEY Vs. THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) . Heard the learned counsel appearing for the respective parties.

(2.) For construction of a storage tank at village Lambarwadi, Taluka Patoda, District Beed, certain lands were acquired by the Maharashtra Krishna Valley, Development Corporation, through its Executive Engineer i.e. present Appellant. Notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") was published on 15th June, 2000. Notification under Section 6 was published in the Government Gazette on 3rd March, 2005. Possession of the lands was obtained by the Appellant Corporation on 4th October, 1999. The Special Land Acquisition Officer passed an award under Section 11 of the Act on 28th October, 2005. Since the land owners were not satisfied with the price offered by the SLAO, all these land owners (hereinafter referred to as "the Claimants") preferred reference applications under Section 18 of the Act seeking enhancement of compensation. The Collector, Beed, forwarded all these applications to the District Court for adjudication. Total 11 of such reference applications were forwarded.

(3.) The material on record shows that the learned District Judge has decided the aforesaid 11 references in three groups. In the first group, a common judgment and award is passed in LAR Nos.98, 99, 101 and 108 of 2008. The second common judgment pertains to LAR Nos.106, 102, 103 and 105 of 2008, whereas, in the third group, LAR Nos.107, 100 and 104 of 2008 are decided by a common judgment. All the aforesaid three common judgments are delivered on 17th January, 2009. The record further shows that in the aforesaid three groups of land acquisition references, the evidence in so far as of sale instances are concerned, is common. In all these three groups, one of the Claimant in the said group has deposed on behalf of all the Claimants and other witnesses as earlier mentioned are common in all the aforesaid groups of land acquisition references. The amount of compensation has been uniformly enhanced by the learned Reference Court in all the aforesaid three groups. In view of the facts as aforesaid, I deem it appropriate to decided all these 11 appeals by a common reasoning.