JUDGMENT

Dr. Mukundakam Sharma, J. —

1. The applications seeking for substitution of the legal representatives of the deceased appellants pending consideration are allowed while condoning delay, directing substitution of the names of the legal representatives in place of deceased appellants. The said applications are accordingly disposed of by this common order.

2. Having passed an order for substitution of the legal representatives in place of the deceased appellants, we now proceed to dispose of all these appeals by this common judgment and order as all these appeals are interconnected and issues raised and urged are almost identical in nature.

3. The Government of Karnataka issued a preliminary notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 [for short “the Act”] proposing to acquire lands for the Bhima River Lift Irrigation Project which was published in the Government Gazette on 08.06.1995 by which the Government proposed to acquire lands belonging to the appellants herein. The lands proposed to be acquired consist of both irrigated and dry lands pertaining to Devangaon Village, Bijapur District. Subsequently, the State Government also issued declaration under Section 6 of the Act on 25.01.1996. Subsequent to the aforesaid issuance of notification under Section 4(1) followed by the notification under Section 6 of the Act, the Land Acquisition Officer passed an award on 14.12.1996 whereby he fixed the compensation and the market value of the acquired irrigated land at the rate of Rs. 15,000/- per acre and for the dry lands at Rs. 13,000/- per acre.

4. Aggrieved by the aforesaid award, reference applications were filed by the claimant - appellants on the basis of which a reference was made to the reference court. Before the reference court parties adduced evidences both oral and documentary. At the conclusion of the trial, the reference court enhanced the compensation of dry lands from Rs. 13,000/- per acre to Rs. 31,500/- per acre by way of judgment and order dated 31.01.2000 and so far as the irrigated lands are concerned, the reference court by way of its judgments and orders dated 08.04.1999 and 13.12.1999 enhanced the compensation of irrigated lands from Rs. 15,000/- per acre to Rs. 45,900/- per acre.

5. The claimants preferred appeals before the High Court of Karnataka and the High Court by the impugned judgments and orders enhanced the market value for the irrigated lands and determined the same at the rate of Rs. 75,600/- per acre and in respect of dry lands the High Court determined the market value at Rs. 38,000/- per acre. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid judgments and orders passed by the High Court, the present appeals were filed in this Court, in which we have heard the learned counsel appearing for the parties.

6. The learned counsel appearing for the appellants contended before us that the High Court was wrong in applying the capitalisation method of valuation for calculating the market value of both the categories of lands. In order to strengthen her argument, she had extensively taken us through the judgments and orders of the High Court, reference court and also the other evidences on record.

7. The first submission which was advanced before us by the counsel appearing for the appellants was that the High Court was wrong to hold that appellants have restricted their claims at Rs. 80,000/- per acre whereas it is shown from the claim petition filed before the reference court that the claim was made at Rs. 1,00,000/- per acre, although, appellants paid the court fee only at Rs. 80,000/- per acre for the lands in question. Therefore, on this basis, we find that there was nothing wrong on the part of the Division Bench of the High Court mentioning that the prayer of the appellants was to fix the market value of the acquired land at Rs. 80,000/- per acre.

8. The next contention of the counsel appearing for the appellants is that the High Court was unjustified to reject the certificate dated 24