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Judgment
N.A. Britto, J.—Heard Shri Menezes, learned Counsel on behalf of the Appellant in First Appeal No. 79 of 2005.
The Appellant is the Original Applicant in L.A.C. No. 203 of 1999. Applicant''s land was acquired by virtue of notification issued u/s 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, gazetted on 30-11-1992. It was acquired for the purpose of construction of Nagwado Humto to Betalbatim road. The applicant''s land admeasuring 725 sq. meters from survey No. 39/2, 350 sq. meters from survey No. 39/3 and 280 sq. meters from survey No. 118/3 of Betalbatim village were acquired. The L.A.O. awarded compensation at Rs. 11.50 per sq. meter. The applicant had claimed a sum of Rs. 250/- per sq. meter.
The applicant had produced three sale deeds, namely, Exh.18 dated 8-1-1990 of a plot of land admeasuring 600 sq. meters sold at the rate of Rs. 262.50; Exh.27 dated 11-12-1985 of a plot of land of 337 sq. meters sold at Rs. 142.17; and Exh.28, sale deed dated 20-12-1985 of a plot of land admeasuring 337 sq. meters also sold at the rate of Rs. 142.17. It can be seen that the learned reference Court had framed three issues. Issue Nos. 2 and 3 have not at all been considered by the learned reference Court as rightly pointed out by Shri M. Menezes, the learned Counsel, and this inspite of the fact that a Court is required, in terms of Order 14, Rule 2, C.P.C. to pronounce judgment on all issues.
The learned reference Court has relied on a sale deed which was not produced but was not even taken into consideration by the L.A.O. in assessing the market value of the acquired land. Reference proceedings are original proceedings and unless the sale deeds were produced before the Court by either of the parties there was no question of taking them into consideration. The said sale deed is dated 22-2-1990. No reasons have also been assigned by the learned reference Court, for discarding the three sale deeds produced by the applicant. There is also no whisper to the evidence of Shri Dessai whom the applicant had examined as his expert.
As a result, there is no other option but to allow the appeals and set aside the impugned Judgment dated 15-10-2004 with a direction to the learned reference Court to decide the reference afresh after hearing the parties.
Parties to appear before the learned reference Court on 27th instant at 10.00 a.m. Let this exercise be completed within a period of 60 days from that date.