Hon’ble Sudhir Agarwal, J.—All these appeals have arisen from the land acquisition proceedings commenced with notification dated 13.2.1995 1995 issued under Section 4(1) read with Section 17 (1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (hereinafter referred to as the “Act, 1894”) in respect of acquisition of land having area more than 70 hectors in villages ‘Mataur’ and ‘Samauli Salempur’, District Meerut, hence have been heard together and are being decided by this common judgment. In some of the appeals, there are some substitution applications. With the consent of learned counsel for parties, all such applications stand allowed.

2. 120 appeals under Section 54 of Act, 1894 have been filed by Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “PGCIL”) for whose benefit land in question was acquired and 21 appeals have been filed by land owners. Besides, in some appeals preferred by PGCIL, land owners have also filed cross objections/cross appeals which are 67 in total, though filed in 60 appeals. In 60 appeals single cross objection/cross appeals have been filed while in 7 appeals, two cross objections/cross appeals have been filed.

3. Before proceeding further, we