SHAFKAT HUSSAIN Vs. COLLECTOR OF AMRAOTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. This appeal arises from a reference made under Section 18, Land Acquisition Act. The Government acquired a strip of land measuring 33 gunthas out of S. No. 135 of Daryapur, which was granted as inam for service as a kazi, for the Co-operative Central Bank. The Collector awarded Rs. 471-12-0 as compensation on the basis of the land being agricultural. The appellant Saiyyid Shafaqat Hussain claimed a sum of Rs. 12,000 treating the land as a building Bite. The District Judge, Amraoti, who dealt with the reference, found that the plot was acquired as a building site and that the compensation payable on this basis would amount to Rs. 1,320, excluding 15 per cent for compulsory acquisition. He however held that the land being inalienable the owner could not obtain for it a price in the open market as a building site and that he was entitled to agricultural value as he used it for that purpose only. On this view he upheld the award.

(2.) IT is contended for the appellant that the fact, that the land was service inam ought to have been ignored inasmuch as no action was taken under Section 31(3), Land Acquisition Act. No doubt it was open to the Collector to follow the procedure laid down in Section 31(3), Land Acquisition Act, but failure to do so would not alter the nature of the right or interest held by the claimant in the land. Section 31 does not exclude operation of Section 23, Land Acquisition Act; on the other hand it pre-supposes the determination of the pecuniary value of the right or interest in the land held by the claimant in accordance with the direction contained in Section 23. Section 31(3) comes into operation only at the time of awarding a money compensation. It only gives an option to the Collector either to pay compensation in cash to the person interested or to grant other land in exchange of the same value, or to make some other arrangement as maybe equitable, This argument is therefore devoid of any substance.

(3.) THE cardinal issue is whether, the land being inalienable, the claimant cannot be held entitled to the market value of the land. The learned District Judge has clearly found that the land has acquired an enhanced value as a building site not withstanding that it was used as an agricultural land but he declined to give the benefit of the enhanced value on the ground that the claimant had no marketable title. The argument appears plausible but in fact not tenable. Section 23, Land Acquisition Act makes no distinction between transferable and non-transferable lands. It only provides that certain matters should be considered in determining compensation and one of such matters is the market value of the land on the date of publication of the declaration under Section 6. Sections 31 and 32, Land Acquisition Act deal with the interest of persons who are incompetent to alienate such as, tenants for life, trustees, or widows, but the Land Acquisition Act does not specify any particular method of determining the value of such interest apart from Section 23. The only method of deter-mining such value is a theoretical consideration of what it would fetch if it were (not that it is) offered in the open market for sale. This is the only objective standard of judging the value of property. The application of any other standard would obviously lead to strange and capricious results. The impossibility of applying any other standard than that of the market value is demonstrated in the procedure adopted by the learned District Judge himself. While on the one hand, he held that the land had no market value, on the other hand he estimated the value of the claimant's agricultural interest on the basis of the market value. If the market value was not to be invoked for the reasons that the owner had no marketable title, it is difficult to see how it can logically be applied in determining the agricultural value of the land. Why should the owner have any more marketable title in so far as it is agricultural land than he would have if it were capable of being used as a building site ?