JUDGMENT :

HARKESH MANUJA, J.

Vide this common order, a bunch of 17 Regular First Appeals, details of which are given in the footnote of this judgment, are being decided as all the appeals have arisen out of common acquisition/Award involving common facts and question of law. For the sake of brevity, facts are being taken from RFA No. 10260-2014.

2. By way of filing the present appeal(s) challenge has been laid to the decision dated 25.02.2014 passed by the learned Additional District Judge, Palwal (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Reference Court’).

3. Briefly stating, 513K-03M of land situated within the revenue estates of Village Behrola, then Tehsil Palwal, District Faridabad, was acquired vide notifications dated 07.09.2007 and 06.01.2009, issued under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, (for short ‘the Act’) respectively, for the public purpose, namely, “for construction of Police line and its staff quarters”. The Land Acquisition Collector (for short ‘the LAC’) vide award dated 04.01.2011 assessed the market value of the acquired land at a rate of Rs.16,00,000/- per acre, alongwith all other statutory benefits under the Act.

4. Dissatisfied with the aforesaid award, the appellants/ landowners filed reference petitions invoking Section 18 of the Act, which came to be partly allowed by the learned Reference Court vide its decision dated 25.02.2014, enhancing the market value of the acquired land to Rs. 17,00,000/- per acre besides grant of all other statutory benefits under the Act.

5. Aggrieved of the decision of the learned Reference Court, the present appeals were preferred at the instance of appellants-landowners.

CONTENTION(S):

ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT(S)-LANDOWNER(S):-

6. Impugning the aforementioned Award, learned Senior Counsel representing the appellants-landowners submits that the learned Reference Court erred having ignored the sale instance dated 07.11.2006 (Ex.PW4/1) vide which 4K-5M of land pertaining to Village Atohan was sold for Rs.55,00,000/-, particularly in view of the established fact on record that the revenue estates of Villages Behrola and Atohan were located opposite each other, separated by National Highway leading form Delhi to Mathura. Learned Senior Counsel further contends that the acquired land was situated exactly on the National Highway, whereas the land parcel forming part of sale deed Ex.PW4/1 was approximately 300 to 400 meters away from inside the Highway. Consequently, the acquired land possessed greater potential vis-a-vis the land parcel forming part of sale instance 07.11.2006 (Ex.PW4/1) owing to its more advantageous location. Learned Senior Counsel asserts that in such circumstances, the learned Reference Court should, at the very least, have relied upon the sale instance Ex.PW4/1 for the purpose of determination market value of the acquired land in the present case(s).

6.1. Learned Senior counsel further contends that the landowners were entitled for award of appreciation @ 15% for the time gap between the date of sale instance Ex.PW4/1 dated 07.11.2006 and the date of notification (i.e. 07.09.2007) under Section 4 of the 1894 Act in the case(s) in hand. He thus, submits that on the basis of evidence on record, the market value was required to be re-assessed and the appeal(s) preferred at the instance of landowners were to be allowed.

ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENT(S)-STATE:-

7. Per contra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent(s)-State, relying upon a screenshot obtained from Google Earth and referring to the locations of the acquired land vis-à-vis the land forming part of the sale instance dated 07.11.2006 (Ex.PW4/1), submits that the distance between the two parcels was approximately 1.9 kilometres, thus, the sale deed Ex.PW4/1 was rightly discarded by the learned Reference Court.

7.1. Learned counsel further points out that in fact, the appellants/ landowners did not approach the Court with clean hands as two of the landowners, namely, Chint Ram @ Chinta Ra