Batala Improvement Trust Vs. State of Punjab and ors. - Court Judgment

Excerpt:
- s.s. sodhi, j.1. the controversy here is with regard to the acquisition of 35.20 acres of land for what came to be known as the development scheme for dharampura basti at batala. after the approval and sanction of the scheme, made in this behalf, by the state government, the notification under section 42 of the punjab town improvement act, 1922 was issued on september 18, 19852. for the purposes of assessing and awarding compensation for the land acquired, the land acquisition collector, divided the acquired land into five blocks. these being :--'block 'a' ... touching the circular road charampuraroad and jullundur road a strip of landupto a depth of 10 karms i e 55 feet.block 'b' ... touching the kacba rast from jullundurroad along side the scheme upto khasrano. 1724 a strip of land upto a depth of10 karms i.e. 55 feet.block 'c' ... area falls on higher level in the schemearea.block 'd' ... low lying area touching kacha rast fromkapuri gate upto khasra no. 1704.block 'e' ... falls in totally low lying area.'3. the land acquisition collector worked out the compensation payable to the land owners at the rate of rs. 130/- per marla for level land and rs. 115/- per maria for low lying land on this, there was a 25% enhancement in the case of land falling in block 'a', 10% in block 'b' and 12|% in block 'd on this basis, compensation payable for land in block 'a' was at the rate of rs. 162 50 p, block 'b' rs. 145/- and block d' rs. 129.37 p. per marla respectively.4. aggrieved against the compensation awarded, the land owners approached the batala improvement trust tribunal under section 18 of the land acquisition act seeking enhanced compensation the tribunal held that the land acquisition collector had rightly divided the acquired land into five different blocks, as .mentioned earlier, and also observed, 'the acquired land on account of its location within the municipal limits possesses great potential of being converted into urban property and as such it has to be compensated 'accordingly the tribunal thereafter having regard to the instances of sale produced before it and taking into account also the fact that deduction has to be made from the price of small plots, when assessing on the basis of it the price of the larger chunks of land, assessed the compensation payable at the following rate, namely :--block 'a' ... rs. 350/-per marla. block 'b' ... rs. 300/-per marla. block 'c' ... rs. 250/-per marla. block 'd' ... rs. 225/- per marla.the land-owners were also held entitled to solatium at the rate of 15% and interest at the rate of 6% per annum from the date of taking over the possession of the acquired land till the date of the deposit of the amount in court.5. the challenge in this writ petition is by the improvement trust mainly on the ground that by its, earlier awards, the tribunal had assessed compensation payable for the land acquired at a lesser rate. the reference here being to the awards of the 'tribunal of december 19, 1979 and march 18, 1981, where the basic pride was taken to be rs. 180/-and rs. 200/- per maria with additional 25% for land falling in the first belt and 12% for the second belt respectively it may be mentioned here that all these earlier awards now stand challenged by the land owners in civil writ petitioners 3440 and 3469 of 1981 and 5357 of 1982.6. in dealing with this matter, it must' at the very outset be appreciated that writ proceedings are not an appellate forurn against an award by a tribunal and no occasion is, therefore, provided here for adjudicating upon questions of fact founded upon mere appreciation of evidence. what is mere, a reading of the impugned award of the tribunal leaves no manner of doubt that all the material placed before it was duly considered while arriving at the finding on which compensation was eventually awarded; the impugned award of the tribunal, thus, warrants no interference.7. as regards the awards of march 18, 1981, which have been challenged in civil writ petitions 3440 and 3469 of 1981 and of december 19, 1979, in civil writ petition 5357 of 1982, these cannot, indeed, be sustained in view of the impugned award of the tribunal of october 15, 1981 (annexure p-l). it will be seen that all the awards pertain to land acquired under the same scheme by the same notification and for the same purpose. all the land acquired falls within the five categories of land as per the award of the land acquisition collector. no different rate of compensation can, thus, be justified. the petitioners in these three writ petitions too. namely c.w p. 3440 and 3469 of 1981 and c.w p. 5357-of 1982 are also held entitled to and are hereby awarded compensation a? the same rate and in the same manner as per the award of the tribunal of october 15, 1981 (annexure p-l).8. in the result, civil writ petitions 3440 and 3469 of 1981 and 5357 of 1982 are hereby accepted, while this writ petition (2488 of 1982) is hereby dismissed, with costs. as no counsel has appeared, no counsel fee shall, however be payable in any of these petitions.