Ratnam, J.

We have resorted to a group disposal of all these appeals, not because common questions of fact or law arise for decision in these appeals, but on account of the judgments appealed against being vitiated by one or more of errors and infirmities common to them all. The judgments appealed against are so unsatisfactory that we have also been provoked into a restatement of the basis of the procedure in relation to references under section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act and the manner in which they should be dealt with and disposed of by the courts. Broadly and briefly stated, for the purpose of various housing schemes, provision of house sites to Harijans, for construction of ESI dispensary and staff quarters, for widening the Tindivanam Road, for the formation of by-pass road (east coast road) and for assignment of free house sites to the landless labourers in the rural areas, large extents of land situate in Kurumbapet, Saradapet, Olandai, Thattanchavadi, Ouigaret, Murgambakkam, Ariyankuppam, Temgathittu, Kuruvinathan and Goodapak-kam were acquired under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act. The notifications under section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act,