The court emphasized that the highest value among comparable sales must be considered for compensation in land acquisition cases, unless justified otherwise.

JUDGMENT :

R. SAKTHIVEL, J.

Prayer: First Appeal filed under Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 praying to set aside the Award dated 23.07.2014 made in L.A.O.P. No. 14 of 2010 on the file of the II Additional District Court at Puducherry in so far as rejecting the claim of the appellants to the extent of Rs. 17,44,20,388/- worked out at the rate of Rs. 678/- per sq. ft. over and above the sum of Rs. 100/- per sq. ft. fixed by the Reference Court, and fix the compensation at the rate of Rs. 778/- per sq. ft. and allow the appeal.

1. Aggrieved with the Judgment dated February 10, 2022, made in A.S. No. 566 of 2018 by a Co-ordinate Bench of this Court, the appellants and the first respondent - Union of India had preferred Civil Appeal Nos. 3899 and 3900 of 2024 respectively before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India vide its Order dated March 7, 2024 remanded the matter to this Court to re-determine the relevance of the Sale Deeds produced on record for the purpose of assessing the market value of the lands acquired from the appellants herein.

2. It is apposite to extract the relevant Paragraphs of the aforementioned Order dated March 7, 2024 viz. Paragraph Nos. 7 to 11 hereunder:

“7. On consideration of the rival submissions, we deem it appropriate to remand the case to the High Court with a request to re-determine the relevance of the sale deeds produced on record, for the purpose of assessing the market value of the acquired land. All the contentions raised on behalf of the parties before us are left open to be urged before the High Court.

8. The instant appeals are, accordingly, allowed in part and the impugned judgment is set aside. The matter is remanded to the High Court. The parties are directed to appear before the High Court on 10.04.2024.

9. It is clarified that we have not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case.

10. It is pointed out at this stage by learned counsel for the land owners that the compensation awarded by the Reference Court has also not been released so far and that the Authorities have deducted the TDS on whatever compensation amount was paid to the land owners earlier.

11. Since the compensation awarded by the Reference Court is not in dispute at all, the Union of India and other official respondents are directed to release the compensation, as awarded by the Reference Court, along with solatium and statutory interest accrued thereupon till date to the land owners without prejudice to the rights of the parties. Since no TDS can be deducted on the compensation paid for compulsory acquisition, the amount deducted towards TDS shall also be released to the land owners without any delay.”

3. Hence, this Court will now be considering the matter afresh.

Facts in Brief:

4. The Government of Puducherry decided to acquire ‘land measuring an extent of 19.92.70 Hectares in R.S. No. 21, 24, 25, 26, 43, 44 and 46 of Karuvadikuppam Revenue Village, Oulgaret Taluk, Puducherry District’ [‘acquired lands’ for short] for the purpose of expansion of Puducherry Airport. The appellants own a ‘land area of 2.39 Hectares (2,57,257.21 sq. ft.) in R.S. No. 25/2 of Karuvadikuppam Revenue Village, Puducherry’ [‘subject land’ for short]. Notification was issued under Section 4 (1) of ‘the Land Acquisition Act, 1894’ [‘L.A. Act’ for short] with respect to the acquired lands including the subject land and the same was published in the Gazette on June 30, 2006. The declaration under Section 6 of the L.A. Act was made public on April 25, 2007.

4.1. The ‘Land Acquisition Officer’ [henceforth ‘L.A.O.’] assessed the acquired lands on November 28, 2006, and recorded their valuations on December 6, 2006. During the assessment, the L.A.O. reviewed 874 sale instances that took place between July 8, 2005, and July 7, 2006 i.e. the one-year period before the Notification under Section 4(1) of the L.A. Act. Among these sale instances, 78 sale instances were rejected as they involved the sale of land with