SWATANTER KUMAR, C.J.:- The State of Maharashtra through the Special Land Acquisition Officer (hereinafter referred to as SLAO). Upper Godavari Project. Karanjwan Dam, acquired the lands situated at village Malegaon and Sinnar. Taluka Sinnar. District Nashik by issuing notification under section 32(2) of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Act (hereinafter referred to as MID Act) on 9th February. 1989 for the public purpose. The land was sought to be acquired from the revenue estate of the village Sinner and Malegaon, Taluka Sinnar, District Nashik for Industrial Estate. Malegaon of MID project. In furtherance to the notification under section 32(2) which is at parity with the notification under section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, the appropriate authority further issued notification under section 32(1) of the Act (equivalent to section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894) on 28th December, 1989. The SLAG after following the prescribed procedure vide his award dated 20th June, 1994 awarded different compensation to the owners of the lands while bifurcating the land into Jirayat, Bagayat and Pot-Kharaba. Following were the compensation awarded:

1. @ Rs,40,000/- to Rs,42,000/- per hectare for Jirayat land.

2. Rs.60,000/- to Rs.63,000/- per hectare for Bagayat land: and

3. @ Rs.200/- per hectare for pot-kharab land.

2. The claimants felt aggrieved by the compensation awarded for acquisition of their lands and made applications on 26.9.1994 under section 34 of the MID Act (equivalent to section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894) which, in turn, were refelTed by the SLAO for adjudication to the court of competent jurisdiction. The parties have led oral as well as documentary evidence before the reference court and the reference court while maintaining the categorisation of the lands made by the Collector, further divided and classified them into two groups viz. lands having road frontage and other interior lands. The compensation was enhanced as follows:

Lands with Road Frontage

(a) Bagayat @ Rs.1,45,000/- per hectare

(b) Jirayat @ Rs.97,000/- per hectare

(c) Pot Kharaba @ Rs,48,000/- per hectare

Interior Lands

(a) Bagayat @ Rs.1,26,500/- per hectare

(b) Jirayat @ Rs.84,000/- per hectare

(c) Pot Kharaba @ Rs,42,000/- per hectare However, the claimants in their claims under section 34(1) of the MID Act (Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894) had claimed compensation at the rate of Rs.2,50,0001- per hectare for the land having road frontage and @ Rs.2,25,000/- per hectare for interior. It is averred that the possession of the land was taken on 1st March, 1989 and the amount of compensation was received by the claimants only or about 7th July, 1994, Various references were disposed of by the learned reference court vide its judgment and award dated 12th May, 2003. Aggrieved from the said Judgment, both the State as well as claimants have filed appeals in this court. The State has come up in 88 appeals praying for reduction of the compensation whereas the claimants have filed 80 appeals praying for higher compensation, Claimants have also filed cross-objection in one appeal. Besides this, two applications have been filed, one in First Appeal Nos.1334 of 2003 and the other in Cross-objection (St.) No.27 195 of 2005 in First Appeal No.1860 of 2003, for substituting the names of the parties and for condonation of delay in filing the cross-objections respectively,

3. At the very outset, we may notice that there was no serious opposition to these two applications and in any case, for the reasons stated in these applications, we see no reason to decline the relief’s prayed for. As nearly 168 appeals and one cross-objection against the same judgment have been heard, no prejudice would be caused to any of the parties if the delay in filing the cross-objection in one or the appeals is condoned and is also directed to be heard along with the other appeals. Substitution on parties is a result of death of one of the parti