- (1.) These appeals have been preferred against common judgment and award dated 23.12.1981 whereby a batch of L.A. Ref Cases No. 18 of 1980 to 47 of 1980 have been disposed of by the learned Special Judge(Land Acquisition) Dhanbad .
(2.) Facts of the case, in brief, giving rise to these appeals are as under : It is an admitted and undisputed fact that for the purpose of acquisition of the land on the basis of the rate report(Exhibit H), a notification under section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act(Ext D) was issued on 21.5.1975 and the date of publication of the declaration under section 6 of the Act(hereinafter referred to as the Act) was 16.3.1976. It was published in the district Gazette(Ext. F). Order under section 7 of the Act was received on 3.5.1976 and the notices under section 9 of the Act were issued on 1.6.1976.
(3.) It was submitted on behalf of the appellants that only sale chart(Ext E) submitted by the Land Acquisition Department showing rates on which land in and around the vicinity were sold during the year 1973-75 was accepted to decide the rates of acquired land. The sale chart of various lands(serial no. 1 to 32) without any rate report should not have been accepted. No reasons have been assigned by the land acquisition department as to why the sale price in item no. 32 of the sale chart should be accepted as the model sale price for fixing rates of compensation of class I land. The sale chart brought on record by the circle officer does not indicate the class of lands which were subject matter of transaction and, as such, sale chart of item no.32 which relates to sale of 3(three ) decimals of land appertaining to Khata No. 50, plot Nos. 120 and 122 should not have been considered to decide and accept as model price for awarding compensation against the land acquired. The learned court below should have held that the sale rate given in item no.32 of the sale chart was in respect of class II land as have been ascertained by the land acquisition department itself and thus the learned court below has committed gross error in declaring plot no.120 and 122 as class I land. The objection raised by the appellants under section 9 of the Act before the Land Acquisition Officer were not considered by the learned Special Judge. The department is not authorized to classify the land without assigning reasons. It was also submitted that the land in question acquired is situated at a distance of 5 kms from the Bokaro Steel Plant and after installation of the Plant(Bokaro Steel Limited), the aforesaid area has seen development and there was chance of urbanization and commercialization of land. Learned counsel also submitted that at least increase at the rate of 10 @ per annum should have been considered by the learned Special Judge(Land Acquisition). The trial court has committed error on banking upon the judgment(Ext 3A) which relates to the land acquired in the year 1956.;