The court emphasized the availability of alternative statutory remedies for seeking enhancement of compensation and the limitations of the writ jurisdiction when an efficacious alternative remedy is available.

ORDER :

1. The case of the petitioners, in brief, is that they are owners of the respective house plots situated in G.Konduru village & Mandal, Krishna District, having purchased them through registered sale deeds and the said land is a nonagricultural land and the petitioners purchased house sites covered under lay out of the local Gram panchayat. It is further case of the petitioners that, the 1st respondent issued notification under Section 3-A of the National Highways Act, 1956 for acquisition of lands in G.Konduru village for widening/extension of existing road of National Highway No. 221 in the section of Vijayawada-Bhadrachalam. The 7th respondent in his report dated 14.03.2017 has recommended for enhancement of compensation at Rs.4,500/- per sq.yard, which is the average of Government market value and private market value of the petitioners’ plots. The petitioners have also specifically submitted in the statement recorded under Section 3G of the National Highways Act, 1956 that, the land was already converted for non-agricultural purpose and sought compensation at the rate of Rs.15,000/- per square yard. However, an award was passed treating the entire land as agricultural land and the value of the land was fixed at Rs.6,01,518/- per acre, instead of fixing compensation on the basis of square yards. It is the further case that dissatisfied with the same, the petitioners along with others filed petition before the District Collector/arbitrator for enhancement and the District Collector enhanced the value from Rs.6,01,518/- to Rs.13,40,000/- per acre. It is the further case of the petitioners that, the registered sale deeds clearly show that they purchased house sites which are meant for construction of houses and it is a commercial area and hence fixation of compensation treating the land as agricultural land is highly unreasonable and moreover, the authorities did not follow the procedure for determining the value of the land. Hence, the present writ petition has been filed.

2. The 5th respondent filed counter affidavit denying the averments of the writ petition, inter-alia contending that, the writ petition is not maintainable as alternative remedy of filing Arbitration Original Petition against the award of the arbitrator is available to the petitioners. It is further stated that the recommendations of the Tahsildar, being subordinate, are not binding on Competent Authority under Land Acquisition, who is vested with original jurisdiction in the matter of acquisition and he is duty bound to determine the market value of the lands taking various factors into consideration, as per the procedure laid down under the Rules but not on the recommendations of the subordinate officers. The 3rd respondent has followed the procedure prescribed under Section 26 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 by taking into consideration various factors such as the lands were covered with bushes with no marking of plots on ground and there are no civic amenities existed such as roads, electricity, water and drainage facilities and the lands have not been developed on ground as house sites and further the petitioners did not produce any documents regarding conversion of land from agriculture to non-agriculture to sustain their claim and as such the 3rd respondent has fixed the value of the land at Rs.6,01,518/- per acre, which is higher than the basic value of Rs.5,50,000/- and if other statutory benefits were allowed on market value, the rate per acre comes to Rs.15,72,023/-. It is further stated that, the Arbitrator & Collector has enhanced the compensation from Rs.6,01,518/- to Rs.13,40,000/- per acre, which comes to Rs.35,00,000/- per acre if other statutory benefits were allowed. It is further stated that, in addition to the market value 100% solatium and 12% additional market value was calculated from the date of publication of 3A notification till the date of pa