JASWANT SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this common judgment, I shall be disposing of 17 Regular First Appeals bearing Nos. 2456 to 2469, 2535 to 2637 of 1993 filed by the land owners/claimants as identical question of law and facts are involved therein. However, the facts are being taken from RFA No. 2456 of 1993 titled as Jaswant Singh v. State of Punjab and another.

(2.) LAND measuring 20.16 acres situated in village Naglian, Tehsil Kharar District Ropar was notified under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short the, 'Act') dated 24.3.1988. followed by a notification of declaration issued under Section 6 of the Act dated 8.4.1988 for public purpose, namely, for the construction of High Level Distributory. On actual measurement, the acquired land was found to be 19.23 acres. The Land Acquisition Collector, SYL Canal Project, Punjab, Patiala (for short 'the Collector') vide his award No. 438/R-SYL dated 30.5.1990 classified the acquired land as under :-

(3.) AS against this, the respondent-State did not lead any oral evidence but tendered copy of sale deed Ex. R1 vide which land measuring 13 Kanals 4 marlas situated in the revenue limits of viiiage Naglian was sold for Rs. 24,000/- per acre. Besides the above evidence, the claimants had also relied upon a decision of this Court in the case of The State of Punjab v. Surjan Singh etc., 1990(1) PLR 278. whereby land of village Polwal, Tehsil Rajpura was acquired for the construction of SYL Canal. In that case, an agreement between the then Chief Minister of Punjab and Members of Action Committee was tendered as evidence vide which the then Chief Minister, Punjab had announced that Rs. One lac per acre shall be awarded as value of the Chahi land. In the said case, Rs. 1,25,000/- per acre was awarded instead of Rs. One lac as announced by the then Chief Minister, Punjab on the ground of potentiality of the acquired land which was found to be lying within the Periphery Control Act.