The Subordinate Judge has the discretion to award compensation within the limits indicated in the Land Acquisition Act, regardless of the petitioner's stated figures.

Byers, J.

1. The petitioner has been awarded compensation under Section 11 of the Land Acquisition Act and on his application under Section 18 of the Act, a reference has been made to the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Tinnevelly. At the time he asked for a reference under Section 18 the petitioner claimed compensation at the rate of eight annas per square foot, although he had in his claim under Section 9 (2) of the Act demanded compensation at the rate of twelve annas per square foot. After the case had been referred to the Subordinate Judge by the Collector under Section 19 of the Act, the petitioner filed a superfluous statement before the Subordinate Judge in which he reiterated his claim to compensation at the rate of eight annas per square foot. Subsequently, in consequence of something which had happened in another Land Acquisition case relating to some land in the neighbourhood, the petitioner desired to enhance his claim from the eight annas specified by him to the twelve annas per square foot originally claimed under Section 9 (2) before the Collector. He accordingly put in an application to amend his claim and this was refused for two reasons by the learned Subordinate Judge. The first reason first reason was that he had no jurisdiction to allow an amendment of the claim and that in any event the application was made at a very late stage and was devoid of any bona fides. The petitioner has now come up in revision and Mr. T. V. Muthukrishna Ayyar, his learned advocate, relies on two decisions. The first of them is the case of Mt. Bhagwati v. Mt. Ramkali (1939) 2 M.L.J. 98 : 66 I A. 145 : I.L.R. (1939) Karachi 299 (P.C.) in which it was laid down that the word " grounds " referred to in Clause (2) of Section 18 of the Larra Acquisition Act does not mean a statement of claim or particulars on which the application is made but merely refers to one or more of the four grounds referred to in Clause (1) of the section. The other case is that of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Vizagapalam v. Zamindar of Chemudu I.L.R. (1938) Mad. 479 in which it was held that,

although Section 18 (2) of the Land Acquisition Act requires that the application for a reference to a Court shall state the grounds on which the objection is taken, there is a sufficient compliance with its provisions if the application states on which of the four heads of objection detailed in the Sub-section (1) the applicant proposed to rely. When an objection to the amount of compensation has been taken, , the Court has jurisdiction to work out the amount of compensation in a manner and on a basis different from that which has been adopted either in the statement of claim before the Land Acquisition Officer or in the objections against the award.

It is clear from these two decisions that not only the amended statement which the petitioner wished to file but also the statements which he filed before the Collector and the Subordinate Judge immediately after claiming a reference under Section 18 were all superfluous. All that he had to do was to state in his application that he objected to the amount of compensation awarded and it was not incumbent upon him to state whether he claimed compensation at the rate of twelve annas as originally demanded by him or whether he limited it to some lesser amount. The maximum and minimum which can be awarded by the Subordinate Judge are clearly indicated in Section 25 (1) of the Act, and, therefore, without any particulars of claim by him, it is open to the Subordinate Judge to award him compensation at the rate of twelve annas per square foot as originally claimed by him under Section 9 (2) of the Act or to dismiss his claim entirely. The Subordinate Judge is not limited in framing his award to any figures mentioned by the petitioner in his application under Section 18 of the Act. In view of this the amendment is clearly unnecessary and this petition is ordered to be dismissed.