JUDGMENT :

HARKESH MANUJA J. 

Vide this common judgment, batch of total 19 connected Regular First Appeals are being decided as all have arisen out of the same award. The details of the connected cases are mentioned in the footnote of this judgment.

Since, Mr. Sameer Sachdeva, Advocate had already submitted his power of attorney-vakalatnama on behalf of the Punjab State Agriculture Marketing Board, he is requested to appear on its behalf.

1.2 For convenience, the facts are being taken from RFA-2391-2006 (O&M).

2. By way of present appeal, challenge has been laid to an Award dated 21.04.2005 passed by the Court of learned Additional District Judge, Bathinda (for short, “the Reference Court”), whereby, reference petition(s) preferred at the instance of landowner(s) invoking Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for brevity, “1894 Act”), were partly allowed.

3. Brief facts of the case are that some land owned by the appellant(s)-landowner(s), situated in the revenue estate of Village Maur Kalan, Tehsil Talwandi Sabo, District Bathinda, was acquired vide notifications dated 11.01.1999 and 12.08.1999, issued under Sections 4 & 6 respectively of the 1894 Act, for the public purpose, namely, “for establishment of New Mandi Township”. The Land Acquisition Collector (for short, “the LAC”) vide its Award dated 09.08.2001, awarded market value @ Rs.5 lakhs per acre for land upto the depth of 36 karams and @ Rs.3.85 lakhs per acre for the remaining land beyond 36 karams besides granting the benefits of other statutory benefits.

4. Feeling dissatisfied with the award passed by the LAC, the landowners preferred reference petition under Section 18 of the 1894 Act, seeking enhancement of compensation. Upon consideration of the material available on record, the learned Reference Court vide its decision dated 21.04.2005, partly allowed the reference petition(s) while re-assessing the market value of the land falling within a depth of 36 karams @ Rs.450/- per square yard while upholding the assessment of the market value made beyond 36 karams for the remaining land by the LAC alongwith other statutory benefits under the 1894 Act. Two landowners, namely, Ramesh Kumar and Balbir Singh were also awarded an additional amount of Rs.6,38,000/- and Rs.4,39,700/- respectively on account of construction over the acquired land.

5. Feeling dissatisfied with the aforesaid award passed by the learned Reference Court, the landowners as well as the Punjab State Agriculture Marketing Board preferred the appeals, details whereof are mentioned in the footnote of this judgment.

6. Impugning the aforementioned award, learned counsel for the appellants-landowners submits that the learned Reference Court erred having discarded the sale instances beyond Ex.A-1 and Ex.A-13. He points out that the sale instances Ex.A-4, Ex.A-9, Ex.A-10, which pertained to the same revenue estate of Maur Kalan and fetched higher sale price were required to be taken into account for assessing the market value. Learned counsel also contends that if at all, only the sale instance Ex.A-1 was to be relied upon by the learned Reference Court, an appreciation @ 15% (compound) was required to be granted for the time gap between the said sale instance upto the date of notification issued under Section 4 of the 1894 Act in the case(s) in hand.

6.1. He also points out that taking into account the fact that the acquired land was located on the main road leading from Rampura to Rama and even formed part of municipal limits of Maur Mandi, as such, the market value at the uniform rate was required to be granted for the entire chunk of acquired land rather than applying the belting system. He thus, prays 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.

7. Per contra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent(s)-Punjab State Agriculture Marketing Board while opposing the prayer m