The main legal point established is that the imposition of a cut on market value and determination of severance charges must be based on the specific circumstances of each case, and no absolute rule applies.

Rameshwar Singh Malik, J.

This bunch of 30 Regular First Appeals, out of which 17 appeals bearing RFA Nos. 6989 to 7005 of 2014 filed by State of Haryana and 13 appeals bearing RFA Nos. 8879 to 8881, 9630 to 9636 of 2014, 2568, 2569, 3140 of 2015, filed by the landowners, is being decided vide this common order, as all these appeals arise out of the same acquisition and raise identical questions of law and facts. However, with the consent of learned counsel for the parties and for the facility of reference, facts are being culled out from RFA No. 6989 of 2014 (State of Haryana and another v. Sudarshan Kumar and others).

2. Briefly put, facts necessary for disposal of this bunch of appeals are that State of Haryana sought to acquire land measuring 8.34 acres out of revenue estate No.33 Tosham, District Bhiwani, at public expenses for public purpose; namely for construction of Tosham Drain. Accordingly, notification dated 22.2.2010 was issued under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 ('the Act' for short), which was followed by notification dated 23.4.2010 under Section 6 of the Act. Land Acquisition Collector, vide his award No. 3-B dated 6.5.2011, assessed the market value of the acquired land at uniform rate of Rs. 12 lacs/- per acre.

3. Dissatisfied, the landowners filed their objections under Section 18 of the Act and as a consequence thereof, as many as 17 land references were forwarded, which were decided together by the learned reference court, vide its common impugned award dated 20.3.2014. Learned reference court assessed the market value of the acquired land at the uniform rate of Rs. 58,88,000/- per acre.

4. Both the parties felt aggrieved against the above said impugned award passed by the learned reference court. State of Haryana has filed 17 appeals, seeking reduction in the amount of compensation awarded by the learned reference court, whereas the landowners, by way of 13 appeals, are seeking further enhancement thereof. That is how, all these 30 appeals are being decided together.

5. Having heard learned counsel for the parties at considerable length, after careful perusal of record of the cases and giving thoughtful consideration to the rival contentions raised, this Court is of the considered opinion that so far as appeals filed by the State of Haryana are concerned, the same are without any merit and are liable to be dismissed, whereas, appeals filed by the landowners deserve to be partly allowed. To say so, reasons are more than one, which are being recorded hereinafter.

6. A bare perusal of the impugned award passed by the learned reference court would show that the landowners have produced voluminous evidence on record in support of their stand taken. State has also brought on record voluminous evidence, but the sale instances relied upon by the State were found irrelevant, because the same were post acquisition. Although some of the sale instances relied upon by the landowners were also post acquisition, yet learned reference court has referred to 5 sale examplers in tabulated form in para 20 of the impugned award. Since two sale instances contained in Ex.P-1 and Ex.P-4 were pertaining to different revenue estate, i.e. Dharwanbas and also because only one marlas of land in each of these two sale deeds was sold, learned reference court committed no error of law, while ignoring these two sale deeds.

7. However, since very small parcels of land belonging to different landowners, ranging from 2 marla to less than 2 kanals were acquired in the instant acquisition, the learned reference court ought to have taken into consideration the average market value of three sale deeds, i.e. Ex.P-5, Ex.P-9 and Ex.P-10, instead of taking into consideration only one sale deed Ex.P5. Findings recorded by the learned reference court in this regard are liable to be modified. It is so said because land measuring 10 marlas, 7 marlas and 6 marlas was sold by Ex.P-5, Ex.P-9 and Ex.P-10 respectively. The average market v