TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1976 (8) TMI 149
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....ation under Section 4 of the Acquisition Act or to the date corresponding to that of the notification under Section 6 of the Acquisition Act. The facts of the cases are not really material for the determination of the question of law stated above. A few facts relating to the lands acquired may, however, be mentioned. They have a bearing on a connected question dealt with at the end of this judgment. The seven appeals by special leave arise out of land acquisition proceedings in which the 1st of the preliminary notifications, under Section 16 of the Bangalore Act, took place in the Mysore Gazette from 1960 onwards; and, the subsequent notifications, under Section 18 of the Bangalore Act, equated by Section 27(2) of the Bangalore Act with notifications under Section 6 of the Acquisition Act, were made in 1967. All the lands involved in these appeals are situated in Birmamangala Village, Bangalore North Taluk, and are .shown to have been acquired for the purposes. of a scheme known as 'Bhinnamangala Lay Out II Stage or Indira Nagar Extension'. The Bangalore Act, as its preamble states, is really concerned with the "improvement and future expansion of the City of Bangalore and....
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....ore Land Acquisition Act was also correspondingly amended whenever provisions of the Central Land Acquisition Act 1 of 1894 were altered .so that the two could be treated as identical for our purposes. The judgment and orders of the Division Bench, under appeal before us, purports to follow a Full Bench decision of the Mysore High Court in Venkatamrna v. Special Land Acquisition Officer(A.I.R. 1972 Mysore 193), where it was held that the relevant date for determining the market value of the property to be acquired is the date of notification under section 18 of the City of Mysore Improvement Act of 1903. It appears that the provisions of the last mentioned Mysore Act of 1903 largely correspond with the provisions of the Bangalore Act before us. It has, however, to be remembered that the Act which the Full Bench of the Mysore High Court was interpreting was. enacted in 1903. It had, therefore, to be construed with reference to the provisions of the Acquisition Act as it stood in 1903. The Mysore Full Bench had observed that the Mysore Land Acquisition Act had been amended by the Mysore Act 1 of 1927 "so as to make compensation payable as on the date of publication of the notifica....
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....of the Bangalore Act, a similar provision which could ;indicate that proceedings under a section other than those under section 16 of the Bangalore Act could possibly correspond with those under section 4(1) of the Acquisition Act. And, we think that to equate a resolution under section 14 of the Act with a notification under section 4(1) of the Acquisition Act, on a similar reasoning, would be to miss the very different purposes meant to be served by a resolution under section 14 of the Bangalore Act and a notification under section 4(1) of the Acquisition Act. Such reasoning appears to us to be very far fetched. Another reason given by the Full Bench of the Mysore High Court, for holding that market value should be determined as on the date of notification under section 18 and not that of notification under section 16 of the City of Mysore Improvement Act (both these sections, correspond to section 16 and 18 of the Bangalore Act) was that a delay of 20 years between the two notifications would make the acquisition unconstitutional. We are unable to appreciate the bearing of this consideration on a decision of the statutory requirements as to the date on which market value is t....
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....e Acquisition Act, we could not dispense with the requirements of section 23(1) of the Acquisition Act which is the only provision applicable for determining the date of the market value. The only result of equating a resolution under section 14 with a notification under section 4(1) of the Acquisition Act could be to shift the date of as certainment of market value farther back. But, that is not what the respondents contend for. The second additional provision under section 27(2) seems designed, by way of abundant caution, to clarify the meaning of provisions of section 18 of the Act, Obviously, it prevents any construction which could enable a notification under section 18 of the Bangalore Act to be equated with section 4(1) of the Act. To hold that a notification under section 18 of the Bangalore Act could be equated with section 4(1) of the Acquisition Act, in the face of this clear provision, equating it with a notification under section 6 of the Acquisition Act, is to countenance the obvious absurdity that there is no difference between a notification under section 4(1) and section 6 of the Acquisition Act. A possible line of argument, in view of the 1st additional prov....
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....set out the provisions of section 4 of the Acquisition Act and section 16 of the Bangalore Act to indicate the identity of purposes and the extent of similarity of procedure. Section A of the Acquisition Act provides: "4. Publication of preliminary notification and powers of officers there upon.--(1) Whenever it appears to the appropriate Government or the Deputy Commissioner that land in any locality is needed or is likely to be needed for any public purpose, a notification stating the purpose for which the land is needed, or likely to be needed, and describing the land by its survey number, if any, and also by its boundaries and its approximate area; shall be published in the official Gazette, and its Deputy Commissioner shall cause public notice of the substance of such notification to be given at convenient places in the said locality. The Deputy Commissioner may also cause a copy of such notification to be served on the owner, or where the owner is not the occupier, on the occupier of the land. Explanation.--The expression 'convenient places' includes, in the case of land situated in a village, the office of th....
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....ein, and naming a place where particulars of the scheme, a map of the area comprised therein and a statement specifying the land which it is proposed to acquire and of the land in regard to which it is proposed to recover a betterment fee may be seen at all reasonable hours; and Shall- (a) Copy of notification of scheme to be communicated to May or of the Corporation-Communicate a copy of such notification to the Mayor of the Corporation who shall, with in thirty days from the date of receipt thereof forward to the Board, for transmission to the Government as hereinafter provided, any representation which the Corporation may think fit to make with regard to the scheme; (b) Publication of notification.--Cause a copy of the said notification to be publication during three consecutive weeks in the Mysore Gazette and posted up in some conspicuous part of its own office, the Deputy Commissioner's office, the office of the Corporation and in such other places as the Board may consider necessary. (2) Service of notices on owners of property to be acquired in executing the scheme.--During the thirty days next following the day on which such notification is published in the Mysore Gaz....
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.... sanction. Of course, the Govt. could either sanction or reject the scheme. And, in suitable cases, the Board could perhaps revoke its own resolution. But, we need not consider or decide that question here. All we need observe here is that a corresponding special procedure, which we find in the provisions of section 16 of the Bangalore Act, need not necessarily be identical with the general procedure, serving the same object, which we find in section 4(1) of the Acquisition Act. We are concerned more here with the identity of objects and functions of provisions rather than with that of precise steps prescribed or words used in them. The next stage is found in section 18 which lays down: "18. On receipt of sanction, declaration to be published giving particulars of land to be acquired- (1) (a) On receipt of the sanction of the Government,. the Chairman shall forward a declaration for notification under the signature of a Secretary to the Government, stating the fact of such sanction and that the land proposed to be acquired by the Board for the purposes of the scheme is required for a public purpose. (b) The declaration shall....
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.... and of acquisition proceedings under the Acquisition Act, contemplated by it, would reveal that, whereas the procedure from the notification under section 4 to the notification under section 6 of the Acquisition Act gives place to the procedure provided by sections 14 to 18 of the Bangalore Act, the stage at which compensation is to be determined is to be regulated entirely by the general provisions of section 23 (1) of the Acquisition Act because there is no special or separate provision in the Bangalore Act to regulate the compensation payable. It is true that section 23 is not specifically mentioned in the Bangalore Act. But, the obvious purposes of the opening words of section 27 of the Bangalore Act seems to us to be that award of compensation, which is a necessary part of any law providing for acquisition, must be governed by section 23 of the Acquisition Act. The last mentioned section enacts: "23. Matters to be considered in determining compensation.--(1) In determining the. amount of compensation to be awarded for land acquired under this Act, the Court shah take into consideration-first, the market value, of the land at the date of the publication of the 'notification un....
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....words, was to exclude only those provisions of the Acquisition Act which become inapplicable because of any special procedure prescribed by the Bangalore Act (e.g. section 16)corresponding with that found in the Acquisition Act (e.g. section 4(1). These words bring in or make applicable, so far as this is reasonably possible, general provisions such as section 23(1) of the Acquisition Act. They cannot be reasonably construed to exclude the application of any general provisions of the Acquisition Act. They amount to laying down the principle that what is not either expressly, or, by. a necessary implication,, excluded must be applied. It is surprising to find misconstruction of what did not appear to us to be reasonably open to more than one interpretation. Learned Counsel for the respondents, rather desparately, attempted to argue that, as there was no procedure or principle laid down at all for award of compensation in the Bangalore Act, we should invoke the aid of Equity and hold that the market value should be determined with reference to the date of notification under section 18 of the Act. We do not think that such an argument could be advanced at all in the face of the pro....
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....no question of res judicata in such a case. The previous judgment was not between the same parties. Furthermore, the appellant was not given any opportunity of showing that the judgment related to land which was at some distance from the lands whose value was to be determined or that its site value was, for some reason, higher. Even the time at which the value of the other land was determined was not shown to be identical. Such judgments are not judgments in rem. They are judgments in personam. The general provision of law governing admissibility of all judgments, whether they are judgments in rem or judgments in personam operating as res judicata, is section 43 of the Evidence Act which reads as follows: "43. Judgments, orders or decrees, other than those mentioned in Sections 40, 41 and 42, are irrelevant, unless the existence of such judgment, order or decree, is a fact in issue, or is relevant under some other provision of this Act". It is apparent that section 43 enacts that judgments other than those falling under sections 40 to. 42 are irrelevant unless they fall under some other provision of the Evidence Act; and, even ....