Ramesh Prosad Agarwal vs Union of India (UOI)

P.N. Mookerjee, J.—This appeal is by the referring claimant and it arises out of a proceeding for acquisition of land under the Defence of India Act. The property, sought to be acquired, comprised land and building (structures). The area of the land was 1 bigha 10 cottahs and 14 chataks.

The Collector''s offer was at the rate of Rs. 500 per cottah for the land and Rs. 30,394 for the structures, the total offer coming up to Rs. 17,753-2-0 (including statutory allowance) plus Rs. 30,394. The claimant''s claim was Rs. 1,500 per colt ah for the land and Rs. 60,274 for the structures. The claimant also claimed statutory allowance of 15 per cent under the law.

The parties not having agreed on the question of valuation, there was the necessary reference to arbitration and the learned Arbitrator accepted the claimant''s contention in part and made an award at the rate of Rs. 800 per cottah for the land, leading to the land''s valuation of Rs. 24,016. The Arbitrator''s award for the structures was Rs. 37,645 in round figures. The learned Arbitrator also awarded interests on the Collector''s amount from the date of acquisition or possession, namely April 15, 1946, upto December 26, 1955, the date of the Collector''s award, at the rate of five per cent per annum and, on the balance, also at the same rate from April 15, 1946, till payment. The learned Arbitrator also appears to have left undisturbed the Collector''s acceptance of the claimant''s claim of 15 per cent statutory allowance.

The claimant, feeling aggrieved by the above award of the learned Arbitrator, has come up to this Court in the present appeal and his contention is that, for the structures, his full claim as made above, namely Rs. 60,274, should have been allowed and for the land he should have been awarded a rate of Rs. 1,500 per cottah.

The materials before us are very meagre. Practically, there is only oral evidence on the two sides, supporting or purporting to support their extreme contentions, and the only other material on record is a document of sale of the year, 1931 showing valuation of land in the locality. In this situation, the learned Arbitrator purported to follow the rule of golden mean and that would have had some support from the 1931 document, so far as the land is concerned, in the light of the claimant''s expert''s evidence that the valuation of the year 1946 would be about three times the value of 1931. So far as structures are concerned, there are the two experts'' reports on the two sides and, on the basis of the same, the matter has to be decided. In this state of things, as we have said above, the Arbitrator''s seeking to follow the rule of golden mean may have some justification. In actually making his award, however, the learned Arbitrator did not strictly stick to his above proposition of following the rule of golden mean and to that extent, it seems to us, he may be said to have fallen into some error. We would, accordingly, rectify that error by applying the rule of golden mean on the above materials which will lead to a figure of Rs. 1,000 per cottah for the land, giving a total valuation of Rs. 30,875 for the acquired land, comprising 1 bigha 10 cottahs 14 chataks- For the structures, the claimant''s valuation, as we have said above, after excluding depreciation, on which the parties and the authorities concerned were agreed, namely ten per cent, would be Rs. 60,274 and the Collector''s valuation was Rs. 30,394. Added up, these two figures would come to a total of Rs. 90,668, of which the mean or the golden mean would be Rs. 45,334. We would, accordingly, enhance the learned Arbitrator''s award for the land from Rs. 24,016 to Rs. 30,875 and his award of structures from Rs. 37,645 to Rs. 45,334 ; in other words, the claimant would be entitled to an award, on the above heads, to the sum total of the above two sums, '' Rs. 45,334 and Rs. 30,875 or, in other words, to Rs. 76,209 with the usual statutory allowance of 15 per cent. The claimant will also be entitled to interest at the rate, awarded by the learned Arbitrator, namely, five per cent per annum with a little variation as to the period as directed by him namely, on the Collector''s figure of Rs. 48,147 from April 15, 1946, upto the date of payment or deposit with the Arbitrator, whichever is earlier and, on the balance of the enhanced award, as now made by us, from April 15, 1946, till payment or deposit with the appropriate authority whichever be earlier.

The appeal will be allowed in part as above and the award of the learned Arbitrator will be modified accordingly.

In the circumstances of this case, we direct the parties to bear their own costs in this Court.

We may just add that the claimant also made a claim for potential value on the authority of the decision of the Judicial Committee, reported in Raja Vyricherla Narayan Gajapatiraju v. Revenue Divisional Officer, Vizagapatam (1939) L.R. 66 IndAp 105 but the said claim cannot be entertained as it was never mooted either before the Collector or before the learned Arbitrator or in the grounds of appeal � in this Court. We, accordingly, reject this part of the Appellant''s argument.

Amiya K. Mookerji J.

I agree.