RFA No. 4609 of 2006 (1) IN THE PUNJAB AND HARYANA HIGH COURT AT CHANDIGARH RFA No. 4609 of 2006 (O&M) Date of decision : 11.5.2011 State of Haryana and others ...Appellants vs Ram Kumar and others ..Respondents Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Rajesh Bindal Present: Mr. Ashish Gupta, Assistant Advocate General, Haryana. Mr. Sanjay Mittal and Mr. R. D. Yadav, Advocates, for the landowners. Rajesh Bindal, J. This order will dispose of appeals bearing RFA Nos. 4609, 4610, 4612 to 4621 of 2006, 61, 153, 695 to 703, 2802 of 2007, 1709, 1710, 1712, 1733, 1748 to 1750 of 2009, arising out of common acquisition. The State of Haryana has filed appeals seeking reduction of compensation awarded to the landowners for the acquired land, whereas by filing appeals, the landowners are seeking enhancement thereof. Briefly the facts of the case are that State of Haryana vide notification dated 25.7.2001 issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short, 'the Act'), sought to acquire land situated within the revenue estate of villages Jhagroli and Nangal Harnath, Tehsil Narnaul, District Mahendergarh, for construction of Kapoori distributory. Notification under Section 6 of the Act was issued on the same day i.e. 25.7.2001. The Land Acquisition Collector (for short, 'the Collector') vide different awards dated 16.12.2002 assessed the market value of the acquired land @ ` 2,00,000/- per acre for chahi; ` 1,20,000/- per acre for bhood; and ` 1,50,000/- per acre for rosli kind RFA No. 4609 of 2006 (2) of land of village Jhagroli and ` 2,00,000/- per acre for chahi; ` 1,50,000/- per acre for rosli; ` 1,20,000/- per acre for bhood; and ` 1,00,000/- per acre for gair mumkin kind of land of village Nangal Harnath. Dissatisfied with the award of the Collector, the landowners filed objections. On reference under Section 18 of the Act, the learned court below assessed the market value @ ` 6,68,781/- per acre for chahi; ` 5,01,586/- per acre for rosli; ` 3,51,000/- per acre for bhood and ` 3,34,390/- per acre for gair mumkin kind of land. Now both the parties are in appeal before this court impugning the award of the learned court below. Learned counsel for the landowners raised two fold contentions namely that the acquisition in the present case was carried out by the State for the purpose of construction of Kapoori Distributory, which divided the land of the land owners into two parts, still the landowners have not been granted any damages on account of severance. He further submitted that the possession of the land in the present case was taken by the State way back in the year 1979 as the distributory had been constructed at that time. Notification under Section 4 of the Act was issued on 25.7.2001. the landowners should be awarded interest for the period they were deprived of the possession before issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act. On the other hand, learned counsel for the State submitted that all the sale-deeds produced by the landowners on record which were registered prior to issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act were pertaining to very small plots, which may had been purchased by the owners for residential-cum-commercial purposes. As against this, the State had produced four sale-deeds on record which were for quite big chunks of land. One of them was located quite close to the distributory. If the sale-deeds produced by the State are considered, the same clearly justified the award of the Collector. He further submitted that the learned court below did not apply proper cut while assessing the value of the land considering the fact that area dealt with in the sale-deeds produced by the landowners was quite small. RFA No. 4609 of 2006 (3) As far as claim for severance is concerned, it was submitted by learned counsel for the State that the acquisition of land in the present case was in the straight killa line. In that circumstances no damage was caused to the persons on account of division of land as such. As far as the claim for award of interest for the period the possession had been taken by the State prior to issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act is concerned, the submission of the learned State counsel was that in case the landowners are able to establish on record that the possession was taken earlier they can be awarded damages for use and occupation of the land and no interest can be awarded to them. It has been held by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Special Land Acquisition Officer v. Karigowda and others, (2010) 5 SCC 708, that interest for any period prior to the issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act, cannot be awarded as the same has to be in the form of damages for use and occupation of land. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the relevant referred record. In the present case, the total of about 19 acres of land was acquired by the State pertaining to two revenue estates of villages Jhagroli and Nangal Harnath, Tehsil Narnaul, District Mahendergarh, for construction of Kapoori distributory. It necessarily means that small- small portions of land owned by various landowners have been acquired as it is always in the form of small strip of land. The learned court below while assessing the compensation for the acquired land had taken into consideration the sale-deeds produced by the landowners and also the State. The location of the land pertaining to the sale-deeds produced by both the parties has been shown on site plans Ex. P-17 and Ex. RW7. These are located close to the aquired land as well as at some distance. After averaging the sale consideration paid in both sets of sale-deeds, the learned court below reduced a sum of ` 1,00,000/- per acre therefrom while assessing the compensation for nehri/chahi kind of land and thereafter compensation at a lower rate was assessed for inferior quality of land. Nothing was added in the sale consideration shown in the sale- deeds on account of time difference from the date of registration of sale- RFA No. 4609 of 2006 (4) deed till issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act. Even if the land has been acquired in straight killa line but that may be passing through the land owned by one person. No amount on account of severance has been awarded. As far as the sale-deeds produced by the State on record are concerned, the sole reliance cannot be placed thereon. It is for the reason that in the sale-deed, Ex. R-1, registered on 28.6.2001, the average sale consideration is ` 2,00,000/- per acre whereas on 2.11.2000, for the sale- deed, Ex. R-3, the average sale consideration paid is ` 80,222/- per acre. Many a times, the sale-deeds are under valued with a view to avoid payment of stamp duty. This has even been noticed by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in 2011 (1) RCR (Civil) 569 Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation vs Pran Sukh and others. Still even if there is small variation in the valuation of land by the learned court below considering the fact that it is a small portion of land and nothing has been awarded to the landowners on account of severance, I do not find any reason to interfere in the valuation of land. The issue regarding entitlement of compensation for the period the possession of the land was taken prior to the issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act was considered by Hon'ble the Supreme Court in Karigowda's case (supra). The relevant part of the said judgment is extracted below:- “We are bound by the decision of the larger Bench, in R. L. Jain case, which had considered Satinder Singh, on which the reliance has even been placed by the claimants in the present appeal. The larger Bench after detailed discussion on the subject rejected the claim for payment of interest claimed by the respondents in those cases prior to the date of issuance of the notification under Section 4 of the Act. As is evident from the above dictum of the Court, despite dispossession, the title continues to vest RFA No. 4609 of 2006 (5) in the landowners and it is open for the land owners to take action in accordance with law. Once notification under Section 4(1) of the Act has been issued and the acquisition proceedings culminated into an award in terms of Section 11, then alone the land vests in the State free of any encumbrance or restriction in terms of provisions of Section 16 of the Act. The court, in situations where possessions have been taken prior to issuance of notification under Section 4 (1) of the Act, can direct the Collector to examine the extent of rent or damage that the owners of land would be entitled to, the provisions of Section 48 of the Act would come to aid and the court would also be justified in issuing appropriate direction. This was the unequivocal view expressed by the Court in R. L. Jain case as well. This legal question is no more open to controversy and stands settled by this court. We would follow the view taken and accept the contention of the appellant-State that the reference court as well as the High Court could not have granted any interest under the provisions of the Act, for a date anterior to the issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act. However, following the dictum of the Bench in R. L. Jain case, we direct the Collector to examine the question of payment of rent/damages to the claimants, from the period when their respective lands were submerged under the back water of the river, till the date of issuance of the notification under Section 4(1) of the Act, from which date, they would be entitled to the statutory benefits on the enhanced compensation.” RFA No. 4609 of 2006 (6) In terms of the aforesaid judgment, the landowners are entitled for compensation for use and occupation of the land from the date of their dispossession till the date of notification under Section 4 of the Act. The land owners shall file application before the Collector concerned to claim damages for their dispossession from the land for the aforesaid period. These applications may be filed upto 30.6.2011. If such applications are filed then the Collector shall consider the same and shall award such amount to the appellants as may be payable in accordance with law. The applications shall be disposed of finally before 31.10.2011 after affording personal hearing to the parties. The appeals are disposed of in the manner indicated above. 11.5.2011 (Rajesh Bindal) vs. Judge