IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH RFA No. 985 of 1993. Date of Decision : 20.4.2010. Rulda Singh & another ......Appellants Versus State of Punjab & another ......Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE NAWAB SINGH Present: Mr. Parveen Chauhan, Advocate, for the appellants. Mr. N.S. Pawar, Addl. AG Punjab, for the respondent-State. NAWAB SINGH J.(ORAL) This judgment would dispose of 13 appeals because identical question of law and facts are involved in all the appeals. Out of these 13 appeals, 12 (RFA No.985-995 and 3888 of 1992) have been filed by the land owners and RFA No. 538 of 1993 by the State. 2. Pursuant to the notification dated March 9 th, 1987 under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short 'the Act'), the Punjab Government acquired 5.11 acres and 10 kanals 8 marlas of land situated in village Kheri Bir Singh and Kamali Tehsil Sirhind, District Patiala respectively for the purpose of construction of Pamour and Chuni Distributaries. The Land Acquisition Collector by Awards dated September 17 th, 1987 and January 1 st, 1988 determined the compensation at the rate of Rs.60,000/- per acre for chahi and Rs.35,000/- per acre for gair mumkin rasta and Rs.1,20,000/- per acre for gair mumkin abadi. Dis-satisfied therewith, land owners filed references under Section 18 of the Act. By impugned judgments dated December 9 th, 1992 which pertain to the land of village Kheri Bir Singh and dated October 16 th, 1992 in respect of the land of village Kamali, Additional District Judge, Patiala (here in after referred to as 'the Court of Reference') assessed the market value of the acquired land at the rate of Rs.90,000/- per acre. 3. The solitary contention of learned counsel for the appellants is that the amount of compensation of the acquired land should be enhanced to Rs.1,50,000/- per acre in view of the judgment passed by a Division Bench of this Court in State of Punjab and another vs. Satnam Singh and others (LPA No.2253 of 2001 decided on October 7 th, 2002) (Annexure P-1). In the cited case, the land of adjoining village Pamour was acquired for the same purpose, that is, construction of Distributary of SYL kanal and in that case, the amount of compensation was determined at Rs.1,15,000/- per acre. 4. Indisputably, the acquired land is chahi. The purpose of acquisition in the cited case and that of the present case is the same. Of course, in the cited case, notification was issued 11 months later but in opinion of this Court, passage of 11 months in between the issuance of two notifications cannot compel this Court to assess the market value at a lower rate than the rate assessed by this Court in Satnam Singh's case (supra). In this view of the matter, the market value of the acquired land of both the villages, that is, Kheri Bir Singh and Kamali is determined at the rate of Rs.1,15,000/-. Besides this, the land owners are also entitled to the statutory benefits. Resultantly, the appeals filed by the land owners are accepted and that of the State is dismissed. (NAWAB SINGH) JUDGE 20.4.2010. SN