COLLECTOR Vs. MANAGER, KURLA ESTATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In Reference No. 118 of 1921, under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act I of 1894, the Assistant Judge of Thana had before him the question whether the award of the Collector with regard to the land to be acquired was sufficient. The land is situated on the west side of the new Agra Road, and was notified for acquisition partly in July 1920 and partly in December 1920.

(2.) The Collector awarded various rates for various portions of the land from Rs. 2-8 a square yard to Re. 1-8 a square yard; but the total award for the claimant's land under reference amounted to over Rs. 10,000 an acre for the whole of land which measured three acres three gunthas.

(3.) A reference to the plan shows that the land we are now dealing with was of an exceptionally irregular shape, and one of the fallacies in the claimant's argument which, we may add contained more than the usual number of fallacies which we have to deal with in cases under the Land Acquisition Act, was that all the land, whatever its shape and whatever its situation, should be given the same value. We have to consider what a willing purchaser would have given for this land on or about the date of the notification for acquisition. The first thing to be noticed is that a considerable part of the land was useless for building. Even assuming that a purchaser would have in his mind some scheme for developing the land and plotting it out, he would inevitably see that a large amount of the land would be required for accommodation purposes, otherwise a considerable portion of the land would be left on his hands without any prospect of realizing anything for it, unless a very large proportion of the area was used in opening out the rest.