TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1974 (8) TMI 127
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
...., but soon after, discovered that no award could be made without a proper notification under Section 6. Before he could initiate fresh proceedings, for the determination of compensation, one Smt. Suroj Kumari filed a writ petition before the High Court for quashing the award dated the 6th July 1961. The High Court quashed the award, directing the Land Acquisition Officer to proceed afresh in accordance with the provisions of law. The Land Acquisition Officer fell into an error again. He proceeded on the basis of the previous notices issued under Section 9 of the Act instead of issuing fresh notices, which the law contemplated ought to be issued after the publication of the notification under S. 6. He did not withdraw the award D/- the 6th July, 1961, and acted on the statements and evidence previously recorded, without giving opportunity to the claimants to put in additional evidence, if they so desired. The matter, therefore, came up again before the High Court and the second award made on 6th October, 1964, was also quashed, because it was based on no enquiry and was without any opportunity having been given to the claimants. Smt. Sarojkumari v. The State of Madhya Pradesh. wh....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
.... addition, the Land Acquisition Officer gave 10% for potential value besides the statutory 15% solatium. He also allowed 6% P. A. interest from the date possession was taken i.e., from 30-10-1964. till the payment was made. The Additional District Judge, who heard the references under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, was of the view that the land had substantial value as a building-site on the date of the notification: houses were coming up in the vicinity of the Kasaridih abadi which was hardly 250 yards away from the acquired lands, and on the other side towards the north, lay the Uttai-Durg road with a poultry farm, a Bakery, Kaleys' bungalow and garrage, and bungalow of the Officers abutting. The Sector 9 of the Bhilai Steel Plant was hardly at a distance of 1 1/2 miles. The land lay in between the two roads, Uttai-Durg and Durg-Boarsi. The claimants relied upon certain sale-deeds relating to plots in close vicinity of the abadi, sold in 1958 and 1959. which indicated that the price was almost Re. 1/- per square foot there. The learned Judge proceeded on that basis to hold that for the Land 250 yards away from the built-up area, the price should be 50 Nps. per squ....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....we propose to set down the principles which should guide us in determining the market value: "Market value on the basis of which compensation is payable under Section 23 of the Act means the price that a willing purchaser would pay to a willing seller for a property having due regard to its existing condition, with all its existing advantages, and its potential possibilities when laid out in its most advantageous manner, excluding any advantages due to the carrying out of the scheme for the purposes for which the property is compulsorily acquired." Raghubans Narain v. The Uttar Pradesh Government. AIR 1967 SC 465. (ii) "The value of the potentialities must be ascertained on such materials as are available, without indulging in beats of imagination....." The land is not to be valued merely by reference to the use to which it is being put at the time at which its value has to be determined, but also by reference to the uses to which it is reasonably capable of being put in the near future. ............ The land must not be valued as though it had already been built upon. ............ It is the possibilities of the land and not its realised possibilities that must....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....may be. (b) reasonably proximus to the acquired land, (c) should have similar amenities and advantages and (d) these should be transactions of time reasonably proximus to the date of the acquisition." We may observe at the outset that the determination of the market value by the Land Acquisition Officer on the basis of a multiple which was worked out on no rational basis and where the consideration of each transaction taken into account, was not sought to be proved by the evidence of the persons who were either parties to the transaction or who had personal knowledge about it, and, therefore, the foundation having been laid on inadmissible evidence, could not be acceptable to us. . The Additional (contd. on col. 2) District Judge's award was equally arbitrary. We could not find any comparable sale which gave to the vendor the price at the rate of Rs. 12,000/- or Rs. 7,000/-an acre, for any land in close proximity, at or about the time of the notification. We also could see no justifiable reason for drawing a line which could put the very contiguous land on the other side, at a discount of Rs. 5,000/- an acre. Instead of keeping a sliding scale as one went deeper to the east,....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....1500/- 15. D-3 20-7-1959 Decimals } /2 1000/. /1 16. D-4 -11-1960 /1 } 1500/. /2 Out of the twelve sale deeds proved by the claimants, two were rightly ignored by the Additional District Judge. They are Exs. P-8 and P-9. They relate to transactions four and eight years after the date of the notification and could bear no relevance to the market price on the date of the notification. Seven sale-deeds (Exs. P-2. P-4, P-6, P-7. P-10, P-11 and P-12) relate to plots sold out of Khasra No. 763, which lies to the West of the Kastaridih abadi. abutting the Borsi Road. The acquired lands lie a furlong away from the abadi to the East. A.W. 2 Sukhuram proves Ex. P-2. He says that the plot which he purchased under the sale-deed Ex. P-2. lies within the abadi; a very significant admission on his part that there was habitation all around when he purchased the plot. Similar is the statement of Dudharam (....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....rden, in fact, lay on them to discharge the onus of proving the market value and to satisfy the Court that the Land Acquisition Officer's award was insufficient and unsatisfactory. They have failed in discharging the onus and the evidence they gave is really unhelpful. Our examination of the transactions proved by the Government was equally unfruitful. Surprisingly. the Officer-in-charge of the litigation, chose such transactions which were effected by or in favour of the claimants and it was reasonable to expect that the claimant s would not speak anything against their own interest but would rather endeavour to demolish the Government's case. This is exactly what happened. The claimant-witness was not inclined to produce his sale-deed, compelled the Government to lead secondary evidence and instead of supporting the transaction to be one of sale, something was said to construe it as a conditional mortgage. The trial Court was. therefore, inclined to reject all the sale-deeds. This excited our suspicion. Was it that the Officer-in-charge had colluded with the claimants? Why could he not summon independent witnesses; those unconcerned with the acquisition, who might h....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....r, are evidence and need not be proved by the production of the documents themselves. The burden of proof is on the claimant to show that the award is wrong and the weight of that burden depends on the nature of the award." The authority fully supported the view that the evidence relating to transactions, lawfully proved before the Land Acquisition Officer, could be read in evidence before the Court dealing with a reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act. But the observations of the Supreme Court in Chaturbhuj Pande's case AIR 1969 SC 255 in Para 5 seem to render the Madras authority a little doubtful. This is what their Lordships said: "Mr. S. T. Desai. learned Counsel for the appellants complained that the High Court was not right in looking into documents which were not a part of the records of the case particularly when his clients had not been given any opportunity to rebut the conclusions reached therein. It appears that these documents were looked into by the learned Judges after the conclusion of the arguments. If the High Court wanted to take into consideration any fresh evidence, it should have admitted the game in accordance with law. In tha....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....ltiple was worked out could furnish data to us for assessing the correct market value. We could refer to those very sale-deeds proved before the Land Acquisition Officer and say which sale-deed was a comparable transaction in respect of which land was proposed to be acquired. Suppose, the parties had led no evidence before the Court and relied on the data collected by the Land Acquisition Officer himself. Could they not show that a better award could be made on following correct principles? Another reason for admitting the additional evidence is that these very sale-deeds were proved in another Land Acquisition proceedings relating to contiguous lands- Those proceedings came before us in appeal (First Appeal No. 113 of 1968 arising out of Miscellaneous Judicial Case No. 21 of 1966 of the Court of the Additional District Judge, Durg). Our decision in the appeal was delivered on 16-8-1974. A previous decision in a Land Acquisition Case is relevant in a subsequent Land Acquisition Case where the lands involved are in the neighbourhood. We would invite attention of the parties to the decision we gave in that appeal and use it as a comparable award. In fact, (contd. on column 2) ....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
..... The date of the present acquisition is earlier by a couple of months but that would hardly make any difference. For the lands in the interior, the value, according to us, should be assessed at Rs. 4400/- an acre. The acquired lands were paddy fields on the date of the acquisition. They were all under the plough. The lands lie in between the Uttai-Durg and Borsi-Durg Road. The acquisition under the notification under Section 4, dated 27-10-1960 with which we were concerned in First Appeal No. 113 of 1968 related to lands very contiguous to the Uttai-Durg road to the North and lands of Mangalusao, very close to the Kasaridih abadi to the South. The map Ex. P-14 gives the relative position of these lands. The claimants in that appeal had claimed compensation at the rate of Re. 1/- per square foot (i.e. at the rate of more than Rs. 40,000/- an acre), whereas they themselves had purchased the lands at less than Rs. 5000/- an acre only a year or so earlier. This Court dealt with their contentions regarding potential value in para 26 of the Judgment which may be usefully reproduced here since the evidence in the present case is just the same rather a bit inferior. "It is an ....
X X X X Extracts X X X X
X X X X Extracts X X X X
....ncrease in the potential value. However, we propose to value the lands on the road-side at the rate of Rs. 5500/-per acre instead of Rs. 5000/- and at the rate of Rs. 4800/- per acre instead of Rs. 4300/-. for lands contiguous to the Kasaridih abadi. The lands in between shall be valued at the rate of Rs. 4400/-an acre. We have taken into account the rise in potential value at 10% as assessed by the Land Acquisition Officer which appeared to us reasonable and we have fixed the rates accordingly. In determining the Increase in potential value, we could act on no exact mathematical formula. We had to act on ordinary guess work, which as is stated in Velayudam Chettiar's case: Velayudam Chettiar v. The Special Tahsildar: AIR 1959 Mad 462 is permissible. The authority says: "Valuation of immovable property is not an exact science. It is an enquiry relating to a subject abounding in uncertainties, where there is more than ordinary guess work and where it would be very unfair to require an exact exposition of reasons for the conclusions arrived at". The six sale-deeds in favour of Kaleys (referred to in para 16) which relate to the lands placed in better situation, were a....