- (1.) This judgment of mine would dispose of Civil Revision Nos. 2234, 2235, 2236, 2237 and 2238 of 1979, as common question of law arises in all these petitions.
(2.) The Punjab State had acquired land measuring 97 kanals and 17 marlas situated in the revenue estate of village Budhmore, district Patiala for the construction of a bandh along the boundary of the State of Punjab and Haryana for the protection of the district of Patiala from floods. The Collector gave an award No. 148-P on August 10, 1977. Five claimants dissatisfied from the award filed applications under Section 18, read with Section 30 of the Land Acquisition Act which were referred by the Collector to the Additional District Judge for deciding the same. The said applications were contested on behalf of the State of Punjab. On the pleadings of the parties, the following issues were framed :- "(1) Whether each of the petitioner is entitled to compensation ? If so, to what extent ? (2) Whether the compensation awarded by the Collector is not adequate ? If so, to what compensation the petitioners are entitled ?" While dealing with the merits of the case one of the questions that arose before the learned Additional District Judge was the right of the claimants to claim compensation in respect of the various parcels of land acquired by the Punjab State. On this aspect of the matter, the learned Additional District Judge remanded the case to the Collector with a direction that due notice would be given to the Nagar Panchayat and thereafter the matter would be again decided with or without modification of the original award or by giving the supplementary award in accordance with law. It is in this situation that the present revision petitions have been filed.
(3.) The only contention raised before me by Mr. Boiparai, learned counsel for the petitioner was that there was no occasion for the learned Additional District Judge to have remanded the cases to the Collector for fresh decision. What was sought to be argued by him was that in case the Nagar Panchayat was found entitled to the compensation, then relief should have been granted in Nagar Panchayat's favour; but there was no justification for remitting the cases to the Collector specially when on the question of market-value it had been found that the award of the Collector did not suffer from any legal infirmity.;