Judgment :-

Deepak Verma, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Question as to what would be proper, adequate, just and reasonable compensation to be awarded to the appellant for the land acquired by the respondent State, has once again cropped up for our consideration in this and the connected appeals.

3. In this appeal, the land owner, whose land has been acquired by the State of Punjab is before us for enhancement of compensation awarded to him by the High Court and the beneficiary respondent No. 3 M/s. Nahar Industries Infrastructure Corporation Ltd. (hereinafter shall be referred to as 'the Corporation') has preferred separate appeals for reduction of the compensation awarded to the appellant by the High Court. Since both set of appeals arise out of the common judgment and order pronounced by the learned Single Judge in Regular First Appeal No. 1072 of 1999 in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh on 03.05.2006, they have been heard analogously and are being disposed of by this common judgment and order.

4. It may be noted that for the sake of brevity and convenience, facts of appeal arising out of SLP(C) No.1578 of 2007 have been taken into account.

5. Short facts, shorn of unnecessary details are mentioned hereinbelow:

Respondent No. 1 - State of Punjab, for the purposes of setting up of an Industrial Focal Point in Tehsil Rajpura District Patiala issued a notification on 13.11.1992 under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act (hereinafter shall be referred to as 'the Act') for acquiring 550.03 acres in villages Lalru, Jalalpur, Lehli, and Hassanpur of the aforesaid Tehsil and District. The public purpose mentioned in the same was for Industrial Focal Point. Subsequently, by issuance of another notification under Section 6 of the Act, on 08.04.1993, the aforesaid land was declared to have been acquired. Thereafter, the Land Acquisition Collector started the process of computing the amount of compensation to be awarded to the land owners. The Land Acquisition Officer pronounced his award on 12.9.1994 fixing different rates per acre for the lands of four villages. The appellant and other land owners feeling highly dissatisfied with the amount of compensation so assessed by the Land Acquisition Officer, preferred references under Section 18 of the Act to the Civil Court at Patiala.

6. The matter was accordingly referred to the Additional District Judge, Patiala for working out the amount of compensation to be awarded to the appellant and other such similarly situated appellants. Both the parties led evidence before the Reference Court. On the basis of the evidence so adduced by the parties, the Reference Court was pleased to assess the value of the entire acquired land in four villages at a uniform rate and consequently held that the land owners were entitled to receive compensation of Rs. 1.5 lakh per acre, besides the individual claims made by land owners with regard to super structure, trees and other facilities available in their respective lands were also taken into consideration. The land owners were also held entitled for the statutory benefits as per the amended provisions of the Act.

7. Still not being satisfied with the amount of compensation so awarded to them, the land owners preferred appeals before the High Court under Section 54 of the Act, whereas the beneficiary respondent No. 3 herein the Corporation also preferred appeals purportedly, for reduction of the compensation awarded to the appellant. The Learned Single Judge heard the matters together and disposed of by the common judgment and order, which is being impugned, once again by both sides on a variety of grounds.

8. We have accordingly heard Mr. L. Nageswara Rao, Senior Advocate ably assisted by M/s Navin Chawla, Gaurav Kaushik, Tushar Singh praying for further enhancement of compensation and Mr. Anil Grover, AAG, Punjab with Mr. Kuldip Singh and Mr. Neeraj Kumar Jain, Senior Advocate with Mr. Sanjay Singh Advocate for the respondent Corporation