1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY APPELLATE SIDE, BENCH AT AURANGABAD FIRST APPEAL NO. 506/1992 WITH CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 4373/1992 Baburao s/o Karbasappa Baste, Age : 57 years, Occupation : Agriculture, R/o Makhni, Tq. Omarga, Dist. Osmanabad. (Died) through his L.Rs. (a) Smt. Kashibai w/o Baburao Baste, Age : 65 years, Occu. Household, R/o Makni, Tq. Omerga (old) New Lohara, Dist. Osmanabad. (b) Shri Vaijnath s/o Baburao Baste, Age : 45 years, Occu. Business, R/o Makni, Tq. Omerga, Old Lohara, Dist. Osmanabad. (c) Sow. Sunanda w/o Revansidh Mairan, Age : 43 years, Occu. Household, R/o Deshpande Galli, Osmanabad. ...Appellant. Versus The State of Maharashtra, through Government Pleader, High Court of Bombay, Bench at Aurangabad. ...Respondents. Shri Umakant K. Patil, Advocate for appellant. Smt. S.D. Shelke, A.G.P. for respondent. 2 CORAM : A.V. NIRGUDE, J Date : 2 nd August, 2010. ORAL JUDGMENT:- 1 Heard. 2 This appeal is challenging the judgment and award passed by learned Joint Civil Judge (Senior Division), Osmanabad in L.A.R. No. 172/1987. 3 For the purpose of submergence of lower Terna project, the appellant’s land admeasuring 7 H 71 R equivalent to 19 acres 11 gunthas of village Makhni Tq. Omerga Dist. Osmanabad was acquired. The notification for land acquisition was issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act on 02/12/1992. Along with the appellant’s land, several lands belonging to different villagers were also affected due to the notification. In 1983 by prior negotiations, the appellant handed over possession of his land to the Government. The declaration under Section 6 of the Act was made on 30-01-1984 and the Special Land Acquisition Officer passed the award on 18 th September, 1986. Though original appellant and the other claimants lodged their claims of compensation @ Rs.22,000/- to 25,000/- per acre, the Special Land Acquisition Officer awarded compensation @ Rs.4,400/- per acre. 3 4 Against this award, the appellant filed the reference under Section 18 of the Act (L.A.R. No. 172/1987). The learned judge as mentioned above, decided the reference along with three other references. The three other references were made by probably the adjoining land owners. The learned judge of the Reference Court recorded the evidence in L.A.R. No. 167/1987 and used the same for deciding all the references by the common judgment. I tried to peruse the record of the lower Court of Land Acquisition Reference No. 167/1987 and found that except the judgment and award, the entire record has been destroyed. I am therefore, inclined to use the contents of the impugned judgment alone to discuss the merits of the case. 5 It appears that in L.A.R. No. 167/1987, evidence of three witnesses was recorded. The first was the land owner/claimant who stated that his land was irrigated with well water. He said he took crops like sugar cane, wheat, paddy etc.. He sold his sugar cane to a nearby sugar factory. The second witness was one Dhondiba Alange who said that in 1983 he sold his 1 acre land for Rs.18,000/-. The third witness was one Barkule who stated that in 1983 he sold his 1 acre land for Rs.14,500/-. Having regard to the documents showing sale of sugar cane grown in the lands in question, the learned judge of the Reference Court, held that the lands of the claimants were of good quality. But the learned judge of the Reference Court ultimately held on the basis of the evidence that the claimants were entitled to compensation @ Rs.10,000/- per acre. 4 6 The learned Advocate appearing for the appellant criticized this finding, saying that the learned judge of the Reference Court, did not give reasons as to why he had ignored the sale instances. Indeed, the learned judge of the Reference Court, has not recorded specific reasons as to why he would ignore the market value of the lands in the vicinity reflected through the sale instances referred to above. The learned Advocate appearing for the appellant requested me to peruse the judgment of this Court in F.A. No. 574/1992 and F.A. No. 38/1993. At his request, I got the original record of these first appeals produced before me and I found that these two appeals arose from land acquisition references decided by the very same judge of the Reference Court and the lands in question in those references were also from village Makhani. Even in those references, the sale instances referred to above were utilised and proved to support the case of enhanced compensation. The learned single judge of this Court while deciding the above mentioned two appeals took into account previous judgment of this Court in appeal No. 326/1999. 7 The appeal No. 326/1999 also had arisen from a Land Acquisition Reference from the same village Makhani. The learned single judge in that judgment referred to a judgment of Full Bench of this Court, State of Maharashtra Vs. Parasram Aute reported in 2007 (5) Mh.L.J. 430 and a judgment of the Supreme Court in a case of O.N.G.C. Vs. Sendabai reported in 2005(6) S.C.C. 454. Having regards to the ratios of these judgments, my learned brother held that the proper market value for 5 the acquired land should be Rs.17,000/- per acre. In view of the fact that, the land of this case is from the same village and since the lands of both of the these cases are acquired at one time for one project under same notification, they form one single unit and on the ground of parity, the appellant is also entitled to compensation @ Rs.17,000/- per acre. The appeal stands allowed to that extent. ORDER The appeal is partly allowed. The appellant is entitled to get compensation @ Rs. 17,000/- per acre along with 6% interest and other statutory benefits. The office shall prepare an award accordingly. Civil Application disposed of. [A.V. NIRGUDE, J.] tsk/ok