- (1.) AMITAVA Lala, J. All the aforesaid appeals are arising out of the proceedings for acquisition of land of village Mandola situate by the side of road in between Delhi and Baghpat. The acquired land was taken for the purpose of installing a project of National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd. and not for any residential or commercial purpose. Some of the appeals are made by the claimants and the others are by M/s. Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation ). We have clubbed together all the appeals and analogously heard.
(2.) THE Special Land Acquisition Officer (hereinafter referred to as the S. L. A. O.) collected several sale deeds for the purpose of determination of value of the acquired land and held that Rs. 20 per square yard will be the appropriate value of the land on the basis of various exemplar sale deeds. Before the Court of reference an argument was advanced on behalf of the claimants that the sale deed of Rs. 132. 33 P. per square yard will be the appropriate exemplar sale deed. One of the exemplar sale deeds is dated 19. 7. 1988 and the other two are dated 25. 5. 1987. According to us, for the purpose of fixation of the value of the acquired land, the date of notification under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, is the appropriate date, therefore, under no circumstance the sale deed dated 19. 7. 1988 can be construed as exemplar sale deed. So far as the other two sale deeds are concerned, one is of village Mandola and another is of village Nanoo, therefore, the sale deed of village Nanoo cannot be considered as exemplar sale deed. Therefore, the question arose before the Court of reference why the remaining sale deed will not be the exemplar sale deeds in the place and instead of Rs. 20 per square yard. However, the Court of reference held that these sale deeds were registered at Delhi and at the time of execution thereof no consideration is shown to have passed on before the Registrar, therefore, those sale deeds cannot be construed as exemplar sale deeds. However, Court of reference further held that the S. L. A. O. could have considered Rs. 65 per square yard as the highest exemplar sale deed in respect of few such lands nearer to Delhi-Baghpat road which are available. Ultimately the Court of reference fixed Rs. 65 per square yard as the price to be paid by the Corporation to the claimants with deductions. So far as the Corporation is concerned, they contended that even the sale deeds of Rs. 65 per square yard is on the higher side. We have called upon the parties to produce the revenue map of the village and we find that a plot No. 1240, which is 3 kms. away from the land acquired herein, comprises of at least 47 sale deeds at Rs. 20 per square yard have been relied upon by the S. L. A. O. The Court of reference has held that when the plots under acquisition herein are in between plot Nos. 248 and 356 and nearer to the main road, sale deeds of such place will be relied upon. In the process, the Court of reference has taken note of all sale deeds and found 4 sale deeds, of the plots nearer to the area acquired, i. e. , in between the plot Nos. 248 and 356, of Rs. 65 per square yard and as such determined the compensation of such rate. From the revenue map we also find that not only aforesaid plot No. 1234 which is 3 kms. away from the area acquired, but another plot, Le. , plot No. 2505 which is half of the way between aforesaid plots also of Rs. 65 per square yard. Therefore, under no circumstance the price which has been fixed by the S. L. A. O. as Rs. 20 per square yard can be accepted but the price which has been fixed by the Court of reference as Rs. 65 per square yard is to be accepted and therefore, we uphold the decision of the Court of reference to that extent.
(3.) NOW, another question arose as to whether any deduction, as made by the Court of reference from the payable compensation, is justifiable or not. In Land Acquisition Officer, Kammarapally Village v. Nookala Rajamallu. and others, AIR 2004 SC 1031 : 2004 (1) AWC 373 (SC), it has been held that the deduction can be made where the land is acquired for residential and commercial purpose with regard to roads and civic amenities, expenses of development of the sites by laying out roads, drains, sewers, water and electricity lines and the interest on the outlays for the period of deferment of the realization of the price, the profits on the venture etc. So far as this Court is concerned, it has discarded the deduction policy on various grounds. One of the grounds is that if the State or its authority acquires the land for the purpose of selling it to the ultimate purchasers upon making available facilities, they normally recover the price inclusive of common facilities, therefore, a Government or its authority cannot be doubly benefited either by deductions from the payment of compensation in one hand and by collections of price of such development from the ultimate purchasers on the other hand. It is also to be seen that no law prescribes deduction in paying compensation. It is to be remembered that deduction is an exception not the rule. See the decisions in National Thermal Power Corporation, Vidyut Nagar, Ghaziabad v. State of U. P. and another, 2007 (7) ADJ 595 : 2008 (1) AWC 462 (DB); Jagdish Chandra and others v. New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, Noida and another, 2008 (1) ADJ 253 (DB) and Ghaziabad Development Authority v. Chandrabhan and others, 2008 (6) ADJ 42 (DB ). In National Thermal Power Corporation (supra) it was held that the land was acquired for establishing a thermal power plant of N. T. P. C. The land has not been acquired for any commercial or residential purpose which may require development and providing of civic amenities. Normally where the land is acquired for such purposes, the Courts have laid down that deduction from the market value should be made for the purposes of development while awarding the compensation. No evidence has been adduced by the N. T. P. C. to establish the extent of development needed or with regard to expenditure likely to be incurred on such development because of the reason that the entire land has been acquired for the purpose of installing a project of N. T. P. C. Ltd. and whatever development is to be made will be for their own purpose and not for the public purpose. Therefore, it would not be prudent to make any deduction on this ground.;