HARKESH MANUJA, J. (ORAL)

Vide this common order, a bunch of 16 Regular First Appeals and 08 XOBJRs, 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 identical facts and question of law. For the sake of brevity, facts are being taken from RFA No.592 of 2024 and XOBJR 46-2024.

By way of present appeal(s), challenge has been laid to the Award dated 31.01.2024 passed by the learned Addl. District Judge, SAS Nagar, Mohali (hereinafter to be referred as the ‘Reference Court’).

Briefly stating, in the present case(s), certain land situated within the revenue estates of Villages Mullanpur Garibdas, Parol and Hoshiarpur, Tehsil Kharar, District SAS Nagar, Mohali was acquired vide Notifications dated 21.05.2010 and 15.11.2010 issued under Sections 4 & 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (for short the ‘1894 Act’) respectively for the public purpose, namely, “for construction/ upgradation of road from Punjab/ UT Border (near Mullanpur) to Siswan T-Junction in Local Planning Area, Mullanpur”. Award under Section 11 of the 1894 Act was passed by the Land Acquisition Collector (for short ‘the LAC’) on 13.05.2011, thereby besides granting all other statutory benefits/interest available to the landowners under the 1894 Act, determined the market value of the acquired land as under:-

Dissatisfied with the Award passed by the LAC, appellants/landowners filed objections under Section 18 of the 1894 Act, which was partly allowed by the learned Reference Court vide its decision dated 31.01.2024, while granting enhanced compensation at the uniform rate of Rs.2,68,05,280/- per acre besides awarding all other statutory benefits/interest in their favour under the 1894 Act. Aggrieved thereof, the present appeal(s) were preferred at the instance of appellant/GMADA; whereas the respondent(s)/landowner(s) preferred appeal(s) as well as cross-objections.

CONTENTION(S):

ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT/GMADA:-

Impugning the aforementioned award, learned counsel for the appellants/GMADA submits that the learned Reference Court erred having discarded the sale instances produced by the appellants. He points out that in the wake of several sale deeds been produced on record, the reliance placed by the learned Reference Court upon the previous award dated 22.07.2013 (Ex.P-1) concerning the revenue estates of village Mullanpur Garibdass, Ferozepur, Parol, Hoshiarpur, and Majra, was wholly misplaced and unwarranted.

He further points out that the sale instances produced by the appellant-GMADA were not to be discarded merely on the ground that the sale consideration reflected therein was lesser than the market value determined by the LAC especially in the wake of law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Lal Chand v. Union of India reported as (2009) 15 SCC 769 and thus, need to be considered for re-assessment of the market value in the case(s) in hand. The relevant para-No. 54 to 59 are extracted hereunder:-

“54. The High Court also rejected Exts. R-3 to R-7 relied upon by the respondents, solely on the ground that the prices therein were lower than the market value offered by the Land Acquisition Collector and therefore, they had to be excluded under Section 25 of the LA Act. Section 25 provides that the amount of compensation awarded by a Reference Court shall not be less than the amount awarded by the Collector under Section 11.

55. We fail to see how the said Section 25 has any relevance in regard to determination of market value as contrasted from award of compensation. If the sale deeds relied on by the respondents showed a particular market value, they cannot be ignored merely because the Collector had awarded compensation at a higher rate in regard to