A claimant who has restricted his claim in an appeal against an award of compensation under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, cannot amend the grounds of appeal and increase the claim after the disposal of the appeal.

V.RAMASWAMI, J.

1. This is an application under Section 149 of the Code of Civil Procedure praying for permission to the applicants "to make good the deficiency in the court-fee and three months time be granted to the applicants to pay the additional court-fee of Rs. 976/-."

2. The facts and circumstances under which this application came to be filed and the real purport of the application may now be noticed. A large extent of 2243.52 acres (10768 Bighas and 18 Biswas) were acquired under the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 , for the establishment of a military cantonment at Bhatinda. Section 4(1) notification was published in the Gazette on October 9, 1974 and the declaration under Section 6 on October 10, 1974. The petitioner s land formed part of the lands acquired. Notices under Section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act were issued and served on the landowners and interested persons including the petitioners on various dates. After hearing such of those landowners who filed objections and wanted to be heard, the Land Acquisition Officer divided the entire area into three belts A , B and C and further divided the belts into zones and blocks and awarded compensation at a rate ranging from Rs. 4500.00 to Rs. 16000.00 per acre and also granted the usual 15 percentum solatium and 6 percentum interest by an award dated June 11, 1975. At the instance of the landowners, the Land Acquisition Officer made as many as 161 land references under Section 18 of the Act to the Additional District Judge, Bhatinda. The learned Additional District Judge, Bhatinda, almost maintained the same three belts and the division of blocks and zones inside the belts and awarded compensation ranging from Rs. 5625/- to Rs. 20,000.00 per acre. Aggrieved by that award of the Additional District Judge, Bhatinda, the present applicants filed R.F.A. No. 1700 of 1980 claiming enhanced compensation of Rs. 1,60,000.00 . Almost all the other claimants also filed regular first appeals against the award of the Additional District Judge, Bhatinda, claiming various amounts as additional compensation. The applicants in Ground No. 4 of the Grounds of Appeal had made the following ground :-

"That although the appellants are entitled to claim much higher amount, but they on their own accord are filing this appeal only for Rs. 1,60,000 (Rs. One lac sixty thousand only) more than the amount allowed by the learned Additional District Judge vide the impugned judgement. Hence, court-fee in this appeal is being paid on the amount of Rs. 1,60,000.00 . It is, therefore, respectfully prayed that the appeal be accepted, judgement of the learned Addl. District Judge be modified and the appellants be awarded Rs. 1,60,000.00 (One lac sixty thousand only) more as compensation than allowed by the learned Additional District Judge." This appeal was taken up for hearing along with the other appeals filed by the other claimants and by a judgement dated November 10, 1981, I.S. Tiwana, J. accepted the classification of the land into belts, but restricted the same into two belts. He accepted the first belt up to 500 meters from the road and the remaining as the second belt. In the first belt, he awarded compensation at the uniform rate of Rs. 15/- per square yard. i.e. at the rate of Rs. 72,600.00 per acre and for the remaining lands at the rate of Rs. 25,000.00 per acre in addition to granting the usual 15 per centum solatium and 6 per centum interest. The learned Judge also awarded proportionate costs. Since the learned Judge had fixed flat rates of Rs. 72,600.00 for the first held and Rs. 25,000.00 for the remaining lands and the claimants had claimed in their appeals varying amounts, at the end of the judgement, he made the following direction :-

"All this, however, is subject to the claims made by them in their memorandum of appeals and cross-objections and the court fee paid thereon. Many of them filed appeals against this award of the learned single Judge and the appli