ISMAILJI MAHOMEDALLI BOHORI Vs. DISTRICT DEPUTY COLLECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two appeals arise from the decision of the District Judge of Nasik in two references under the Land Acquisition Act. The lands in the two references are of a similar nature and are situated together and the two references may be treated together.

(2.) The references arise out of the acquisition by Government of a large block of land in the village of Shinwe Bahula near Deolali for the purposes of a Rifle Range for the troops at Deolali. The bulk of the survey numbers acquired, which amount to over 200 acres, belonged to the applicant Esmailji, and only a small portion of them belonged to the applicant Nomenbhai, The land acquisition officer after taking into consideration the sales which were put forward by the applicants in the proceedings came to the conclusion that they could not be relied on to show the rate per acre at more than Rs. 195, and he ignored the rent which had been paid by the Military authorities for a short period to the claimants for these lands, and ultimately he came to the conclusion that a fair price for the lands was Rs. 200 per acre plus the usual fifteen per cent. together with a email sum for trees and, what he calls, two pits which are now claimed by the claimants to be wells. The claimants being dissatisfied applied to the District Court at Nasik, and the learned District Judge after considering the sales which were few in number came to the conclusion that they should be disregarded as affording no true index of the value of the lands, and he based his award on the rental value of the lands as determined on a mean between the agricultural rent which was paid for these lands for a short period and on the rent of Rs. 24 per acre per annum which was paid by the Military authorities from 1922 to 1928, the date of the acquisition. The mean between these two figures is Rs. 13-10-0 which works out at about Rs. 272-8-0 per acre, and the ultimate result was that he raised the compensation awarded by the land acquisition officer from Rs. 38,045 to Rs. 48,739 in the case of Esmailji and in similar proportion in the case of Nomenbhai, but he disallowed the applicants their costs on the ground that their claim of Rs. 600 per acre was extravagant. The claimants have appealed to this Court.

(3.) The present case is one which raises a little difficulty because the evidence regarding the lands which form the subjects of these references is extremely meagre and it is somewhat difficult to find what their market value really is. The land belonging to the claimant Esmailji, who is the principal claimant in this case, has been, according to him, in his family for a long time, but no title-deeds are produced in respect of it, and he does not give us any indication as to what it cost him to acquire it. We are, therefore, without the first basis in a case of this character, viz., the original value of the land. Secondly, it has been admitted by Esmailji's son, who represents him in these proceedings, that the land has never been put to any use. We have, therefore, no evidence whatever derived from leases of anything of the kind as to what the letting value of the laud would be until it was taken over by the Military authorities. There is no evidence as to the productive capacity of the land and no evidence as to whether it is good or bad except such inference as may be drawn from the assessment. None of these lands with the exception of one land, which is a sale to Nomenbhai, the other claimant, a matter I will deal with later on, has ever been sold, and there is only one instance of a purchase of adjoining land, So far, therefore, as evidence of the original value of the land or its productive capacity or its letting value, except in so far as it was rented to the Military authorities, is concerned, the evidence is nil.