Dr. Gurusewa Singh Pabla vs Union of India (UOI)

P.K Bhasin, J.—The Appellant has challenged the judgment dated 8.07.1992 passed by the learned Additional District Judge in LAC No. 55/1985 whereby the market value of the land of the Appellant in village Yakutpur, which was acquired by the Government for construction of Indoor Electrical Sub-Station pursuant to rd the notification dated 23December, 1967 u/s 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and award No. 47/1970-71 was enhanced from Rs. 72/-per sq. yd. as awarded by the Land Acquisition Collector to Rs. 80/-per sq. yd.

The Appellant was, however, not satisfied with the market value of his plot of land in village Yakutpur, which area according to the counsel for the Appellant is a posh area now known as Kailash Colony, determined by the learned Reference Court and so he approached this Court by filing the present appeal u/s 54 of the Land Acquisition Act and has claimed fixation of the market value of his land @ Rs 500/-per sq.yd.

Mr. Inder Singh, learned Counsel for the Appellant had argued that the Appellant is entitled to get higher compensation since the plot in question was commercial and quite close to Nehru Place and also because it is surrounded by very posh colonies like Greater Kailash, Defence Colony and Lajpat Nagar and also because in Kailash Colony the land rates had increased phenomenally over the years and that fact showed the real potentiality of the Appellant''s land and it should be kept in mind by this Court now. In this regard he also cited one recent judgment of the Hon''ble Supreme Court in "Udho Dass v. State of Haryana and Ors.", and my special attention was drawn to following observations made in paras 17 & 18 of the judgment:

Although, in the present matter, sale instances around or near about the date of Notification of the present acquisition are available yet these cannot justify or explain the potential of a particular place of land on the date of acquisition as the potential can be recognized only sometime in the future and it is open to a landowner claimant to contend that the potential can be examined first at the time of the Section 18 Reference, the first Appeal in the High Court or in the Supreme Court in appeal as well. We must also highlight that Collectors, as agents of the State Government, are extraordinarily chary in awarding compensation and the land owners have to fight for decades before they are able to get their due. We take the present case as an example. The land was notified for acquisition in May 1990. The collector rendered his award in May 1993 awarding a sum of Rs. 2,00,000/-per acre. The Reference Court by its award dated January 2001 increased the compensation to Rs. 125 per square yard for the land of the road behind the ECE factory and Rs. 150 per square yard for the land abutting the road which would come to - 17 - Rs. 6,05,000 and Rs. 7,26,000 respectively for the two pieces of land. This itself is a huge increase vis-a-vis the th Collector''s award. The High Court in First Appeal by its judgment of 24 September, 2007 enhanced the compensation for the two categories to Rs. 135 and 160 respectively making it Rs. 6,53,400 and Rs. 7,74,400. In other words, this is the compensation which ought to have been awarded by the Collector at the time of his award on 12th May 1993. This has, however, come to the land owner for the first time as a result of the judgment of the Notification u/s 4 and 14 years from the date of the award of the Collector on which date the possession of the land must have been taken from the landowner. Concededly the Act also provides for the payment of the solatium, interest and an additional amount but we are of the opinion, and it is common knowledge, that even these payments do not keep pace with the astronomical rise in prices in many parts of India, and most certainly in North India, in the land price and cannot fully compensate for the acquisition of the land and the payment of the compensation in driblets. The 12% per annum increase which Courts have often found to be adequate in compensation matters hardly does justice to those land owners whose land have been acquired as judicial notice can be taken of the fact that the increase is not 10 or 12 or 15% per year but is often upto 100% a year for land which has the potential of being urbanized and commercialized such as in the present case. Be that as it may, we must assume that the landowners were entitled to the compensation fixed by the High Court on the date of the award of the Collector and had this amount been made available to the landowners on that date, it would have been possible for them to rehabilitate their holdings in some other place. This exercise has been defeated for the simple reason that the payment of compensation has been spread over almost two decades. In this view of the matter, we are of the opinion that a landowner is entitled to say that if the compensation proceedings continued over a period of almost 20 years as in the present case, the potential of the land acquired from him must also be adjudged keeping in view the development in the area spread over the period of 20 years if the evidence so permits and cannot be limited to the near future alone. We, therefore, feel that in the circumstances, the Appellants herein were fully entitled to say that the potential of the acquired land had not been fully recognized by the High Court or by the Reference Court. We must add a word of caution here and emphasize that this broad principle would be applicable where the possession of the land has been taken pursuant to proceedings under an acquiring Act and not to those cases where land is already in possession of the Government and is subsequently acquired.

There is another unfortunate aspect which is for all to see and to which the Courts turn a Nelson''s eye and pretend as if the problem does not exist. This is a factor which creates an extremely grim situation in a case of compensation based exclusively on sale instances. This is the wide spread tendency to under value sale prices. The provision of Collector''s rates has only marginally corrected the anomaly, as these rates are also abnormally low and do not reflect the true value. Where does all this leave a landowner whose land is being compulsorily acquired as he has no control over the price on which some other landowner sells his property which is often the basis for compensation?

Learned Counsel further contended that even though the Appellant was claiming compensation @ Rs. 500 per sq. yd. on the basis of a sale transaction in respect of some land in village Bahapur which is adjoining village Yakutpur and which piece of evidence has been wrongly rejected by the trial court but if this Court also does not feel inclined to grant that much compensation then at least it should have been granted @ Rs. 98 per sq. yd., which was the price at which one residential plot of 500 sq. yds. in the area of Greater Kailash-I, which colony also falls in the revenue estate th of Yakutpur, was sold on 24April, 1968 and in respect of which transaction the Appellant had relied upon its sale deed reference to which was made by the learned Reference Court also in the impugned judgment but that much compensation was also not awarded on the ground that that sale deed was executed four months after the issuance of the notification u/s 4 in the present case and further that it was a sale of small plot. This reasoning , according to the counsel, was not a proper reasoning.

Mr. Sanjay Poddar, learned Counsel for the Respondents-UOI, on the other hand contended that there is no scope for any interference by this Court in the well reasoned judgment of the learned trial Court.

After having considered the rival submissions I am of the view that the learned trial Court should have allowed compensation to the Appellant @ Rs. 98 per sq. yd. considering the fact that land in the same village had been sold at the said rate and the time gap between that transaction and issuance of notification u/s 4 in the present case was not much. Since there was evidence of sale in village Yakutpur available the submission of the counsel for the Appellant that the trial Court should have preferred the sale transaction of the adjoining village Bahapur to that of village Yakutpur cannot be accepted and has been rightfully rejected by the trial court.

This appeal is accordingly partly allowed and the market value of the Appellant''s land is fixed @ Rs. 98 per sq. yd. as against Rs. 80 per sq. yd. fixed by the learned Reference Court. The Appellant shall also be entitled to all the statutory benefits on the enhanced compensation which were awarded by the trial Court. The Appellant shall also be allowed proportionate costs of the appeal.