Building-site potential in land acquisition valuation justified enhancement on the willing purchaser standard, while the maintainability objection failed.

The objection that the Collector's High Court appeal was incompetent for want of authority failed. In land acquisition valuation, compensation cannot exceed the amount claimed in the section 9 notice, and the reference court erred by awarding more than the claim. On the evidence, the land lay within municipal limits, abutted a road, was surrounded by buildings and public offices, and was contiguous to land used as house sites, establishing building-site potential on the willing purchaser standard. The award was therefore enhanced on the basis that the land had proven non-agricultural value.

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Issues: (i) Whether the Collector's appeal before the High Court was incompetent for want of authority; (ii) whether the acquired land had building-site potential and whether the compensation required enhancement.

Issue (i): Whether the Collector's appeal before the High Court was incompetent for want of authority.

Analysis: The objection that the appeal should have been dismissed as incompetent was considered against the background of the case and was found to have no substance. No ground was made out to interfere with that determination.

Conclusion: The objection to the maintainability of the Collector's appeal failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the acquired land had building-site potential and whether the compensation required enhancement.

Analysis: Under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, compensation cannot exceed the amount claimed under the notice under section 9, and the reference court had erred in awarding more than what was claimed. On valuation, the evidence showed that the land lay within municipal limits, abutted a road, was surrounded by buildings and public offices, and was contiguous to land for which diversion charges had been paid for non-agricultural use as house sites. These facts established potential value as building sites on the footing of a willing purchaser. The relevant principles on building potentiality required the overall factual picture to be assessed, and the evidence here supported a valuation substantially above the Collector's rate.

Conclusion: The compensation was liable to be enhanced, and the rate of Rs. 1,250 per acre with solatium and interest was upheld as the proper basis of award.

Final Conclusion: The land acquisition award was modified upward on the footing that the land had proven building-site potential, while the challenge to the preliminary objection failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where evidence shows that acquired land has objective potential as building sites, its market value must be fixed on that basis by applying the willing purchaser standard and the overall factual circumstances, not by a purely agricultural valuation.

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