( 1 ) RULE. Service of rule is waived by Mr. A. D. Oza for the respondents. The applicants have approached this Court seeking clarification of the judgment rendered in group of aforesaid First Appeals, dated 22/7/1997 by this Court [coram : J. N. Bhatt and H. R. Shelat, JJ. ]. The applicants have prayed that this Court may clarify that all the claimants in the aforesaid First Appeals are entitled to receive and the opponents are liable to pay to them the amount of solatium u/s. 23 (2) of the Land Acquisition Act (for short the Act) on the enhanced amount of market value which has been fixed at the rate of Rs. 53. 00 per sq. mtr. and further that the claimants are also entitled to receive the statutory benefits available to them by virtue of operation of Section 23 (1-A) of the Act.

( 2 ) SOME relevant facts which are absolutely essential for deciding this application can be stated in brief as follows :-2. 1. THE applicants are the original owners of different agricultural lands situated at village Limbadiya and Karai in Taluka and Dist. Gandhinagar. Necessity to acquire these lands for the purpose of constructing main canal of Narmada Project was felt and hence proposal for the same moved from opponent no. 1 i. e. The Executive Engineer, Narmada Project, Main Canal Divn. , Ahmedabad with a request to the Special Land Acquisition Officer to initiate proceedings for acquisition of the said lands under the Land Acquisition Act. The proposal came to be accepted and the Special Land Acquisition Officer issued necessary notifications which were published in the Gazette on different dates, i. e. For lands situated at village Limbadiya, notification u/s. 4 (1) of the Act was issued on 11/12/1985 and it was again issued after due modifications on 13/1/1987. Notification u/s. 6 published in Government Gazette on 29/1/1987 and the modified notification was issued on 3/2/1987. Whereas for the lands situated at village Karai the notification u/s. 4 (1) was published on 3/12/1985 and the modified notification was issued on 12/11/1986. Notification u/s. 6 was issued on 3/12/1986. The Land Acquisition Officer after completion of necessary formalities under the Act, made an offer of Rs. 2=00 to Rs. 3=50 per sq. mtr. for different parcels of land covered under the aforesaid notifications against the demand of Rs. 100. 00 per sq. mtr. by the applicants and subsequently he passed awards u/s. 11 of the Act dated 2/12/1989, 2/2/1989 and 9/2/1989. 2. 2. SINCE the amount awarded by the Land Acquisition Officer fell hopelessly short of the amount demanded by the applicants, they made necessary request to the Collector to make reference u/s. 18 of the Act for claiming total amount of Rs. 100. 00 per sq. mtr. for their lands. Pursuant to the said request, References came to be made in the Court of 3rd Joint District Judge, Ahmedabad (Rural) at Mirzapur. The References came to be filed in different groups. The first group comprised Land Acquisition Case No. 500 of 1991 and its 10 allied matters. The second group comprised Land Acquisition Case No. 506 of 1991 and its allied matters and the third group comprised Land Acquisition Case No. 250 of 1991 and its allied matters. The Reference Court after considering the evidence led before it and the contentions raised by the rival parties, came to the conclusion that the amount awarded by the Land Acquisition Officer ranging between Rs. 2=00 to Rs. 3=50 per sq. mtr. for the land acquired was not adequate and in the opinion of the Reference Court the correct market price of the lands under acquisition was Rs. 70. 00 per sq. mtr. inall. The Reference Court, therefore, enhanced the compensation upto Rs. 70/inclusive of the amount awarded by the Land Acquisition Officer and directed the opponents to pay to the applicants compensation accordingly. Over and above that, the Reference Court also directed the opponents to pay to the applicants solatium at the rate of 30% and running interest at the rate