Gujarat High Court
The Officer On Special Duty, Land ... vs Gordhanbhai Bhalabhai Patel on 29 October, 1982
Equivalent citations: AIR1983GUJ185, (1983)1GLR607, AIR 1983 GUJARAT 185
JUDGMENT S.L. Talati, J.
1. These First Appeals are directed against a common judgment rendered by the 2nd Extra Assistant Judge at Nadiad on 6-2-1975 while deciding compensation Reference Cases Nos. 44 of 1973 to 51 of 1973.
2. Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation for establishment of an industrial estate required certain lands in village Karamsad of Anand Taluka, Notification under Section 4 of the land Acquisition Act was published on 1-5-1969. Thereafter compensation was claimed before the Land Acquisition Officer by the claimants and the claim was at the rate of Rs. 500/- per guntha. The Land Acquisition Officer awarded Rupees 1.10 per sq. metre for all the lands except survey Nos. 505 and 506. For these two survey numbers the Land Acquisition Officer awarded at the rate of Rs. 1.30 per sq. mt. The claimants were not satisfied with the awards passed and requested the Land Acquisition Officer to make, reference and under those circumstances the land acquisition reference cases were made to the District Judge and ultimately the Court awarded in all cases amounts at the rate of Rs. 500/- per guntha as claimed by the claimants. The Special Land Acquisition Officer and also Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, Nadiad filed appeals challenging the award passed by the Court.
3. I have heard the learned Assistant Government Pleader Shri Trivedi for the appellants. He took us through the evidence of four witnesses examined on behalf of the claimants.
4.-7. xx xx xx x
8. Before I discuss the above evidence in these appeals I would like to observe one thing because one common mistake is committed in many matters while deciding the land acquisition references. Extensive paragraphs are quoted from awards and perhaps the Judge deciding the references believes that he is hearing an appeal from the award passed by the Land Acquisition Officer. This belief in law is incorrect.
The correct position is that an award cannot be read and whatever has been stated in the award cannot become the evidence. Award, is only an offer made by the Land Acquisition Officer to the claimant. If the claimant is not satisfied he can request under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act to make a reference and if he satisfies the Court that he is entitled to a particular market price then alone he succeeds and the judgment is required to be based on the evidence led before the Court and he is not to be guided in any way by whatever may have been stated in the award.
The award, therefore, not being the evidence is not required to be read at all and what I find is that at times paras are quoted from the award while deciding the reference and in fact the award is inadmissible and, therefore, while deciding the award, nothing should be quoted in the judgment from an inadmissible document.
9. Having gone through the evidence and the map exh. 39 what is found is that the lands are acquired for the purpose of Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation and the situation chosen is such where industrial sheds could be constructed. All around there is development and, therefore, though the lands under acquisition are agricultural lands one has got to conclude that there are building potentialities so far as the lands under acquisition are concerned. The learned 2nd Extra Assistant Judge did not rely upon the document Exh. 36 because it was not completed. Mutation entries exhibits 18 and 19 are discussed in the judgment in regard to survey No. 600 and it appears that on 27-9-1973, there was a transaction in regard to 33 gunthas of land for a sum of Rs. 16,000/- which worked out at Rs. 484.84 per guntha. Now in regard to documents Exhs. 30 and 33 it clearly appeared that they were sold at a much higher rate. It is true and the learned Judge knew that the lands sold by exhibits 30 and 33 were non-agricultural lands and they were house-sites and they were small pieces of land. However, they were not house sites which were very far away from the acquired land. Another aspect was that these transactions were of the year 1963-64 while the lands under acquisition were acquired by a notification, dated 1-5-1969. All these aspects were considered by the learned Judge and in a case of Bombay Improvement Trust v. Mervanji Manekji Mistri reported in 28 Bom LR 701 : (AIR 1926 Bom 420) it was held as under :--
"A very simple method of valuing land wholesale from retail prices is to take anything from between one-half and one-third, according to the circumstances, of the expected gross valuation as the wholesale price."
Even if this test is applied considering that agricultural land of fairly much area was being acquired, if compared to the small house site land it clearly appears that the sale price for the instances referred to in exhibits 30 and 33 was Rs. 1800/- per guntha and Rs. 990/- per guntha. Now for the lands acquired by a notification, D/- 1-5-1969, one can never suggest that the price which is required to be allotted could be less than Rs. 500/- per guntha. It appears from the judgment of the trial Court that the learned Judge took into consideration all relevant circumstances and it came to a definite conclusion that the lands in question were situated, in an industrial area and, therefore the market value was required to be fixed in such a way that the claimants get reasonable amount as compensation for their lands. As the lands were agricultural lands and the sale instances were produced for house sites which were not at far distances, a deduction way made and further fact was also considered that the acquisition was in the year 1969. Having thus considered the pros and cons of the matter the learned Judge has taken a balanced view of the whole situation and it is not shown to me that the view taken could be considered to be any way an unreasonable view. Under these circumstances I do not find any merit in the appeals and I agree with the reasoning and the conclusions arrived at by the learned trial Judge. As a result all the appeals fail and are dismissed with costs.