R.F.A. No. 1294 of 1986 [1] IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH R.F.A. No. 1294 of 1986 (O&M) Date of decision: September 04, 2008 Prithvi Singh and others ..Appellants v. State of Haryana and others CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH BINDAL Present: Mr. Jaswant Jain, Advocate for the appellants. Mr. Navneet Singh, Assistant Advocate General, Haryana for respondent No. 1. Mr. Bikram Chaudhary, Advocate for respondent No.2. Mr. Pritam Saini, Advocate for the added respondents. .. Rajesh Bindal J. The residents of Village Ratgal, claiming themselves to be the proprietors of the village, are before this Court challenging the award of the learned Court below, whereby their objections filed under Section 30 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short, `the Act') for apportionment have been dismissed. Briefly, the facts are that in pursuance of notification dated 30.12.1983 issued under Section 4 of the Act, the Government acquired 132 kanals 8 marlas of land for construction of District Jail in Kurukshetra. This was followed by notification issued under Section 6 of the Act in which the area was mentioned as 128 kanals 17 marlas. Out of the acquired land, the land measuring 114 kanals 6 marlas was banjar kadim, land measuring 13 kanals 10 marlas was chahi and remaining 1 kanal 1 marla was gair mumkin. The Land Acquisition Collector (for short, `the Collector'), vide his award dated 19.9.1984, assessed the compensation at the following rates: i) Chahi Rs. 50,000/- per acre ii) Barani Rs. 40,000/- per acre iii) Banjar Jadid Rs. 30,000/- per acre R.F.A. No. 1294 of 1986 [2] iv) Banjar Kadim Rs. 25,000/- per acre v) Gair Mumkin Rs. 25,000/- per acre vi) Gair Mumkin Abadi Rs. 60,000/- per acre During the proceedings initiated by the Gram Panchayat for fair determination of the value of the acquired land owned by it under Section 18 of the Act, on 25.3.1985, the appellants filed objections before the Collector. The same were referred to the learned Court below for consideration. The claim of the appellants was that in fact, they are entitled to compensation and not the Gram Panchayat as the land in dispute was shamlat land of the proprietors of the village and the appellants being descendents of the original proprietor were entitled to compensation. The learned Court below, on appreciation of the material placed on record by the parties, came to the conclusion that the land in question in fact, vested in the Gram Panchayat before the acquisition thereof and accordingly, it was only the Gram Panchayat which was entitled to the compensation and not the appellants. Though learned counsel for the appellants tried to repel the findings recorded by the learned court below, however, no material as such on record could be pointed out which could enable this Court to record a finding that the land in question was ever ear-marked for use for common purposes in the village or was being used as such. They also failed to prove from any material on record that they are the proprietors of the village. As against this, the learned Court below, on the basis of the evidence on record, found that the land in question vested with the Gram Panchayat before the acquisition thereof. As there is no material on record to prove that the appellants were the proprietors of the village and accordingly entitled to the share in the compensation for the acquired land, I do not find that any illegality has been committed by the learned Court below in dismissing the application filed by the land owners for apportionment of the compensation. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed. (Rajesh Bindal) Judge September 04, 2008 mk