The Tribune, Oct 9 2015, Chandigarh: The Chandigarh Administration’s attempts to seek reduction of compensation awarded to landowners for acquisition of their land in the revenue estate of Mani Majra for setting up nurseries have failed to find favour with the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Taking up a bunch of regular first appeals filed by the Administration, Justice Rajesh Bindal of the High Court asserted that the compensation already stood enhanced to Rs 196 per square yard. The UT’s claim for the reduction of compensation was no longer surviving, since the High Court had already enhanced the amount while taking up the appeals filed by the landowners.
The orders case nearly 12 years after the Administration filed a bunch of appeals before the High Court against Karam Singh and other respondents in a land acquisition case dating back to July 1998.
The court, during the course of hearing, was told that the notification dated November 27, 1991, under Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act, was issued by the Chandigarh Administration for the acquisition of land in Mani Majra for setting up the nurseries.
The Land Acquisition Collector, vide award dated February 5, 1993, assessed the market value of the acquired land at Rs 2 lakh per acre. Dissatisfied with the Collector’s award, the landowners filed objections.
Acting on a reference, the court below assessed the market value of the acquired land at Rs 4, 25, 000 per acre. But the award was impugned in the present set of appeals filed by the Chandigarh Administration.
As the set of appeals were placed before Justice Bindal, the counsel for appellant-Administration “very fairly” submitted that the claim made in the present bunch was squarely covered by the High Court judgment in an appeal filed in 2002 by Parminder Kaur and other appellants against the Union Territory of Chandigarh. Decided in April 2009, the compensation payable to the landowners for the acquired land was further enhanced to Rs 196 per square yard vide the judgment.
“Since this court had further enhanced the compensation in the appeals filed by the landowners, the claim of the Union Territory, Chandigarh, for reduction does not survive.Accordingly, for the reasons recorded in Parminder Kaur’s case (supra), the present appeals are dismissed,” Justice Bindal concluded.
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