MAHARANI DURGESHWARI SAHI Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BOTH these appeals arise out of the same judgment and award in Land Acquisition Case No. 52 of 1981 and have been accordingly heard together for its being disposed of by this common judgment.

(2.) AT the outset, it has to be noted that while First Appeal No. 351 of 1994 has been filed by the landlady seeking enhancement of the compensation awarded by the court below, First Appeal No. 358 of 1994 has been filed by the State of Bihar assailing the amount of compensation awarded under the impugned judgment and award.

(3.) IN the opinion of this court, such claim of the appellant-landlady has to be only noted for its being rejected inasmuch as; the copy of the sale deeds dated 1.9.1956 and 8.2.1957 Ext. 2 and 3 respectively are definitely of the date after notification under section 4 of the Act in question was issued. As noted above, the notification under Section 4 of the Act of the present case was issued on 14.3.1956 and that too for more than 12 acres of land and market price of such land could be only compared if there was already a sale effected prior to such Section 4 notification inasmuch as under section 23 of the Act there is a clear mandate of law the cut off date for fixing the market value of acquired land would be date of issuance of notification under Section 4 of the Act. Thus, there would be little relevance of two sale deeds inasmuch as they had been executed much after section 4 notification. Thus this may by itself be good enough to reject them and in fact the court below also had not rightly paid any heed to them. IN fact, the appellant landlady also has not found them to be of much assistance inasmuch as if the valuation of Ext. 2 for one khata and three dhurs on a consideration amount of Rs.800/- is taken into account the same would lead to a valuation of Rs.21760/- per acre whereas Ext. 3 being a sale deed dated 8.2.1957 for 6 dhurs of land for a purchase amount of Rs.265 which would lead to market price of Rs.27160/- per acre whereas the appellant land lady herself had claimed Rs.3000/- per acre in the claim statement filed before the Court below. Thus it is clear that the two documents Ext. 2 and 3 could hardly be of any assistance for the Court below or for this Court in arriving the market price of land with reference to notification under Section 4 of the Act. The Court below in fact has adopted a safer approach by going into the valuation of sale deeds produced by State in the sale statement and had only taken into account the mean value of same type of land. Thus, the Court below has rightly proceeded to fix the amount of compensation @ Rs.2000/- per acre after slashing one-third amount of the sale deed being in respect of a much smaller area.