C.S. Rajan, J.

An interesting question which concerns the Court, clients and counsel arises in this case. Invariably in land acquisition cases, both the claimant and the Land Acquisition Officer will not examine any witnesses in order to. prove the documents in which they rely. In this case the learned Government Pleader has specifically raised the question that the executants of the documents on which the respondent/ claimant relies on has not been examined and therefore, the Court below erred in relying on the valuation contained in the above document. The learned Government Pleader has relied on a number of decisions of the Supreme Court to drive home the above point.

2. In the ruling reported in Inder Singh v. Union of India (1993) 3 SCC 240, neither the claimants nor the Land Acquisition Officer had examined witnesses in proof of the sale transactions. Considering the above question the Supreme Court observed as follows:

"Neither the appellants nor the Land Acquisition Officer had examined witnesses in proof of the sale transactions referred in mutation entries Exts. P4 to P8 on behalf of the appellants and R1 and R2 on behalf of the respondent. It is settled law that