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Showing contexts for: parks table in Kerala State Electricity Board vs C.G. Narayanan on 24 November, 1972Matching Fragments
7. The second point that has to be considered is whether the determination of compensation for the damages caused by drawing electric lines over the property of the respondent has been properly made. It has been found that 25 trees have been cut. of which 20 trees had reached the hearing stage at the time they were cut. For determining the compensation of these trees and for other matters a commission was issued by the Court below and his report has been marked as Ext. C1. According to the commissioner, when he visited the spot he found trees between the ages of 6 to 8 years in the property in a fairly good condition. As the trees for which compensation is claimed had already been cut before the commissioner visited the spot the commissioner could not note the particulars of these trees or whether they had become productive. So, what he did was to assume that, the trees that have been cut were of the same age as those that now remain in the property and on that basis to proceed to determine the income which the trees cut and removed would have fetched. According to him, the income will be 25 to 30 nuts and he also stated that the valuation will have to be fixed on this basis. The commissioner was examined as P. W. 2 and nothing has been brought out in his examination or cross-examination to show that the assessment made by him is wrong in any way or that the income that he has estimated for these trees is not the income for the whole year but only for a particular crop. Though P. W. 1 stated that the average net income of these trees will be between 120 and 130 nuts per tree he has not produced any record or other evidence to show that he has been obtaining the income from the other trees that now remain at this rate per year. So, his interested testimony cannot be acted upon. The lower Court also did not rely on his deposition. The lower Court has simply without any basis found that the commissioner's assessment can only be for a particular cropping and not for the whole year and on the basis that annually there will be six croppings mul-tiplied the number found by the commissioner by six times and fixed the income, at 150 nuts per tree Per year and determined the compensation payable accordingly. As stated earlier, this conclusion of the lower Court is not warranted by any evidence in this case. So I come to the conclusion that the lower Court has clearly gone wrong in finding the net yield of the tree per year. In the absence of other materials accepting the commissioner's assessment of the yield per year at 30 nuts net and calculating the value of those 30 nuts at the rate of Rs 540/- per 1000. each tree would have fetched annually Rs. 16.20p. The Court below has estimated the further bearing period of these trees as 68 vears and nothing has been stated before me to come to a different conclusion. So. adopting the principle laid down in the case Electricity Board v. Thomas, 1961 Ker LT 238 = (AIR 1961 Ker 237) which was followed in Electricity Board v. Tharakan (1968 Ker LT 493) this Rupees 16.20p. will be like an annuity which gives a return at 6% per annum for 68 years. The present worth of that annuity is arrived at by multiplying this net income by 16.35 times on the basis of the table contained in Parks Valuations. 1970 Edn., page 295. On that basis the com-pensation payable per tree will be Rupees 264.87 which figure I round up to Rs. 265/-.