SUB-DIVISIONAL OFFICER Vs. GANESH SAKHARAM KOKATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The State of Maharashtra issued a notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, hereinafter referred to as the "Act" on 18th February, 1998 intending to acquire large strip of land from the revenue estate of village Chapet, Taluka Welhe, District- Pune. This land was sought to be acquired for the public purpose viz. Gunjwani Project. Declaration in furtherance to which under section 6 was issued on 6th August, 1998. After following the prescribed procedure, the Special Land Acquisition Officer exercising the powers of the Collector under the provisions of the Act made his award dated 1st November, 1999 awarding compensation to the claimants at the rate of Rs.25,000/- per hectare to the Jirayat lands while granted compensation at the rate of Rs.40,000/- to Rs.60,000/- per hectare in the case of Bagayat lands. The claimants preferred references under section 18 of the Act which in turn were referred to the court of competent jurisdiction. The parties produced the evidence, oral and documentary, including Exhibit 25 to Exhibit 39 for different sale deeds. The learned reference court considered the evidence produced by the parties and enhanced the compensation payable to the claimants to Rs.2 lacs per hectare for Jirayat land and Rs.4 lacs per hectare for Bagayat land. The reference court mainly relied upon Exhibit 28 and other exhibits which reflected the sale instances of adjacent areas while awarding the said compensation. The State felt aggrieved from the judgment and award of the learned reference court dated 9th December, 2004 and have preferred the above 36 appeals and out of these 36, in two appeals, State also has filed application for grant of stay. Notices in all these appeals were issued. Record of reference court was called for and the parties were heard. During the course of arguments, an application being Civil Application No.3316 of 2008 was filed on behalf of Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation, having its office at Sinchan Bhawan, Barne Road, Pune. It was prayed in this application that they should be impleaded as party and be given an opportunity to contest the original land reference petition under appeal and they also be permitted to produce oral as well as documentary evidence.

(2.) The application for setting aside the exparte judgment and award is still pending before the court and has not been finally decided. On these facts, the applicants have filed the present application with the prayers as afore-indicated.

(3.) We may also notice that alongwith this application, the applicants have placed on record photo copies of the sale instances relating to the lands from the same village as well as the surrounding villages. Exhibits "E" to "H" are the copies of these documents.