Sudhir Agarwal, J. - (1.) All these appeals have arisen from the land acquisition proceedings commenced with notification dated 13.02.1995 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 may also place on record that 120 appeals of PGCIL as well as cross objections/cross appeals were earlier decided by this Court vide judgment dated 22.02.2016. This Court found that Reference Court determined market value on the basis of an exemplar sale deed which was in respect of 6000 square meters land while the area of acquired land in respect to several land owners was much smaller and other exemplar sale deeds were rejected only on the ground that the same pertain to smaller piece of land and this was not just and reasonable considering the fact that land which was acquired belong to a large number of land owners and their total land qua each individual land owner varies in size from 50 sq. meters to 41530 square meters and, therefore, a single rate for the entire segment of land was unjust as it amounts to treating unequals as equals. This Court, therefore, remanded the matter to Reference Court to redetermine market value in the light of the discussions made in the said judgment. A large number of land owners took up the matter in Supreme Court and filed Civil Appeals led by Special Leave to Appeal (Civil) No. 5429-5455 of 2017). All the appeals have been allowed by Supreme Court vide judgment dated 01.05.2017 observing that documents placed on record were sufficient to determine compensation and, therefore, remand to Reference Court was not justified. The judgment of Supreme Court reads as under: "Leave granted. Having heard learned counsel for the parties, we are of the opinion that it would have been proper for the High Court to decide the matter itself instead of remanding the matter to the Trial Court as the High Court had observed that no further evidence is required, as the documents adduced by the parties and the other evidence on record is sufficient to determine the compensation. In such circumstances, we set aside the order of the High Court and request the High Court to take up the matter on merits and decide itself the Appeals as well as cross objections in accordance with law. In case the High Court comes to the conclusion, while hearing the appeals, that it is necessary to record further evidence nothing prevents the High Court from exercising the power for doing complete justice. It may also direct recording of the evidence by Reference Court in case it is considered necessary and call for finding. With the aforesaid observations, the appeals stand accordingly allowed to the said extent.";