The main legal point established is the requirement for reliable and acceptable evidence, including oral evidence from witnesses, to prove the genuineness of sale transactions and determine the market value of acquired lands in land acquisition cases.

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 claimant is entitled to just and reasonable compensation and under S.23 to determine the market value of the lands the prevailing prices as on the date of the publication of the notification under S.4(1), the sale transaction of the same lands or sales of lands situated in the neighborhood would furnish as evidence of comparable sales. The price which a hypothetical willing vendor might reasonably expect to obtain from a willing purchaser would form the basis to fix the market value. It would be possible to have reliable evidence when sale transactions are proved by either the vendor or the vendee and if either of them was not available, the attesting witness who had personal knowledge of the transaction is to be examined by producing either the original sale deed or certified copies thereof as evidence. Under S.51-A of the Act as amended in 19 84 the certified copies have been permitted to be brought on record as evidence of sale transaction recorded therein. The examination of the witnesses is to find that the sale transactions are bona fide and genuine transactions between willing vendor and willing vendee as reasonable prudent men and the price mentioned is not throw away price at arms length or depressed sales or brought into existence to inflate market value of the lands under acquisition and the sales are accommodating one. Equally it must be brought on record the comparative nature of the lands covered under the sale deed and the acquired lands whether adjacent or actual distance or possessed of similar advantage and whether transactions themselves are genuine and bonafide transactions. This proposition of law, since settled law, in fairness, has not been disputed across the bar. The contention is that at the relevant time it was not being insisted upon. Therefore, none of the witnesses was called upon to prove the sale deeds or to prove the sale transactions".

3. In the ruling reported in State of U. P. v. Rajendra Singh (1996) 1 SCC 341 also neither the Vendor nor the Vendee was examined. Therefore, the Supreme Court held that the sale transactions are not evidence unless the Vendor or the Vendee has been examined in the Court. The following paragraph in the above judgment is extracted below:

"3. It is settled law that in reference under S.18 claimant being dissatisfied with the award of Land Acquisition Officer, when the proceedings are taken under S.20 of the Act, burden is ivy s on the claimant like plaintiff to adduce reliable and acceptable evidence to prove proper, stand adequate compensation to the acquired land. If such an evidence was adduced, burden ills on to the State to disprove it. It is further settled law that the sales transactions filed either little narration of award or documents, without examination of either the vendee