STATE OF MAHARASHTRA Vs. KERU BABAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The State of Maharashtra through the Special Land Acquisition Officer (hereinafter referred to as SLAO), Upper Godavari Project, Karanjwan Dam, acquired the lands situated at village Malegaon and Sinnar, Taluka Sinnar, District Nashik by issuing notification under section 32(2) of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation Act (hereinafter referred to as MID Act) on 9th February, 1989 for the public purpose. The land was sought to be acquired from the revenue estate of the village Sinner and Malegaon, Taluka Sinnar, District Nashik for Industrial Estate, Malegaon of MID project. In furtherance to the notification under section 32(2) which is at parity with the notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, the appropriate authority further issued notification under section 32(1) of the Act (equivalent to section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894) on 28th December, 1989. The SLAO after following the prescribed procedure vide his award dated 20th June, 1994 awarded different compensation to the owners of the lands while bifurcating the land into Jirayat, Bagayat and PotKharaba. Following were the compensation awarded:

(2.) The claimants felt aggrieved by the compensation awarded for acquisition of their lands and made applications on 26.9.1994 under section 34 of the MID Act (equivalent to section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894) which, in turn, were referred by the SLAO for adjudication to the court of competent jurisdiction. The parties have led oral as well as documentary evidence before the reference court and the reference court while maintaining the categorisation of the lands made by the Collector, further divided and classified them into two groups viz. lands having road frontage and other interior lands.

(3.) At the very outset, we may notice that there was no serious opposition to these two applications and in any case, for the reasons stated in these applications, we see no reason to decline the reliefs prayed for. As nearly 168 appeals and one crossobjection against the same judgment have been heard, no prejudice would be caused to any of the parties if the delay in filing the crossobjection in one of the appeals is condoned and is also directed to be heard alongwith the other appeals. Substitution of parties is a result of death of one of the parties and the heirs are sought to be brought on record. Resultantly, both these applications are allowed and relief claimed in terms of prayer (a) is made absolute.