RAMAN NAYAR J. :- These appeals and cross-objections arise out of proceedings taken under the provisions of the (Travancore) Land Acquisition Act (Act XI of 1089) for the acquisition of 1.72 acres of double-crop wet land and 56.54 acres of dry land (or garden land as it has been called) for the Kozha Agricultural Research Farm in the Kottayam District. The lands, it would appear, are contiguous lands lying in one block. The Collector made seven separate awards by which he granted a total compensation of Rs. 1,16,000/- (rounded off to the nearest thousand) exclusive of the 15% solatium and interest. Not content with this, the landowners (or plaintiffs as they have been called by the Court below in accordance with the instructions in the old Travancore Civil Courts Guide, the State Government being called the defendant) asked for a reference to Court under Section 18 of the Act. There were accordingly seven separate references all of which were heard together, the evidence being recorded in L. A. R. No. 94 of 1960 (the subject-matter of A. S. No. 436 of 1963) which was treated as the main case. The Court awarded additional compensation totalling Rs. 4,93,000/- inclusive of solatium and interest. The State Government has come up with these appeals seeking a total reduction amounting to Rs. 4,03,000/- while the plaintiffs by their cross-objections seek enhancements amounting to Rs. 4,04,000/-.

2. The question in all these cases is: What is the amount awardable under clause, 'firstly' of sub-section (i) of S. 32 of the Act? In other words what was the true market value of the acquired lands within the meaning of that clause on the relevant date thereunder, namely, 14-3-1958, the date of the declaration under Section 6 ? Or, rather, since we are sitting in appeal :

Is the award by the Court below under that clause erroneous?

The dispute, we might mention, relates only to the award under that clause - indeed there was no award under any of the other clauses except for a petty award under clause 'secondly' in one of the cases.

.3. Before we proceed to consider this question we have some observations to make regarding the conduct of these proceedings, and we make them in the expectation that due notice will be taken of them by the authorities concerned so that such remissness may not occur in the future with consequent loss to the exchequer, perhaps in some cases, injustice to a party who can't go to Court. (We are told that such remissness is a general feature and that is our own experience. The fault, it would appear, is of the systems rather than of particular individuals. That is really why we are making these observations - their object is the reform of the system, not the apportionment of blame). If our expectations are not completely belied, these appeals and the disproportionate amount of time we have had to spend on them (largely because of the unsatisfactory way in which the proceedings were conducted by the Collector and before the Court below, leaving the learned Advocate General in the unhappy position of trying to make the best out of what has been done very ill indeed and pointing out that the other side has not done much better) will not have been altogether in vain.

4. These cases might well involve public funds to the tune of over Rupees 10,00,000/-, and we are told that they comprise only part of the land acquired for the farm. Yet it does not appear that any officer of Government higher in rank than a Village Officer inspected the lands with a view to assess their value - at any rate none has come forward to give evidence. It would appear that the rules made under Section 41 of the Act for the guidance of officers, which require that what are called valuation statements should be prepared by the Tahsildar or the Deputy Tahsildar and when prepared by the Deputy Tahsildar should be scrutinised by the Tahsildar after inspection - in a case of this magnitude one would have expected the District Collector or at least the Reve

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