RAM DITTA Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Ram Ditta, the present petitioner, had made an application under Section 18 of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, to the Assistant Collector First Grade, Hissar, for the purchase of 11 Bighas of land comprising Khasra No. 2755 of the revenue estate of Hissar from Siri Krishan Dev, respondent No. 5, who is the landowner. The Assistant Collector allowed the petitioner to purchase only 9 Bighas and 18 Biswas out of this land, but fixed the price at Rs. 5,991/-. The Assistant Collector found that this land was being cultivated for sowing vegetables and there were also mongo trees and worked out the price of the land on the basis of Exhibit R.W. 3/1 annexed to the petition. The price arrived at was on the basis of 10 years' average price of garden lands, which worked out to be at Rs. 3,873.12 nP. par acre. On that basis, the price for the land allowed to be purchased came to Rs. 7,988/- and the petitioner was directed to pay three fourth of the above price, which came to Rs. 5,991/-, as mentioned above.

(2.) Respondent No. 5 was aggrieved by this order and he went up in appeal. Various issues raised by respondent No. 5 were rejected and the only point on which the learned Collector interfered by his order, dated the 19th of June, 1962, was regarding the price. The Collector held that the average price arrived at by the Assistant Collector was on the basis of average price of land being purely agricultural Whereas the land although at present agricultural was bounded by all sides by abadi. He found, as a fact, that similar land in the neighbourhood had been sold for plots and although at the time that the appeal was being heard, the market prices were very high and in any case according to the average price statement (Exhibit R.W. 3/2), the price on which these gardens were sold divided into plots and situate year the town came to Rs. 39,770/- per cre. He further found that the total price for the land allowed to be purchased came to Rs. 82,025.62 nP. three-fourth of which came to Rs. 61,519-62 nP.

(3.) Aggrieved by this order, the petitioner went up in appeal before the Commissioner, Ambala Division, where it was urged that the purchase price determined by the learned Collector was excessive,