UNION OF INDIA Vs. QABOOL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are 17 petitions (S. C. A. Nos. 51-D to 60-D, 62-D, 63-D, 66-D, 67D, 68-D, 70-D and 75-D of 1958) filed under Article 133 of the Constitution by the Union of India and the Delhi Improvement Trust for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against our orders of the 15th of May 1958 by which was dismissed the petitioners' appeals against awards made by the Tribunal constituted under the U. P. Town Improvement Act of 1919 as extended to Delhi.

(2.) The land which was acquired by the Improvements Trust in these cases in situated in the adjoining villages of Shadipur and Khanpur-Raya, the cases regarding the former village being decided by our judgment in R. F. A. 184 of 1951 and those regarding Khanpur-Raya being decided by our judgment in R. F. A. 88 of 1952. In the cases of both villages the Tribunal had increased the amounts awarded by the Collector and had fixed the rate at Rs. 5/- per square yard for all the land. This was based on unchallenged evidence that in the year 1947 land in this area, including some of the land actually acquired in the Shadipur area, had been purchased at the rate of Rs. 5/- per square yard, the relevant date for valuation, i. e., the date of the preliminary notification of acquisition, being the 24th of February 1948.

(3.) We have been asked to grant a certificate of fitness in these cases on the ground that the interpretation of the provision in the Act by which the marker value is to be determined on the basis of the use to which the land is put on the relevant date involves a substantial question of law. In dismissing the appeals against the awards of the Tribunal we followed what I think has been the consistent view of this Court, which has been fully expounded in the case of the Union of India v. Data Ram. (1956) 58 Pun LR 135: (AIR 1958 Punj 35) to the effect that although the land is still classed as agricultural land, if within a reasonable period from the relevant date there have been no sales of land at the ordinary price of agricultural land, and land has in fact only been purchased in that neighbourhood for development, the market value of the so-called agricultural land in the area must become the value for which such land is being sold. In the circumstances I am not inclined to certify these cases as fit for appeal to the Supreme Court.