LexDOLLAR COMPANY, MADRAS versus COLLECTOR OF MADRAS
Open in Lexace · Ask the AI about this caseJudgment (excerpt)
i DOLLAR COMPANY, MADRAS v. COLLECTOR OF MADRAS May 1, 1975 [V. R. KRISHNA !YER, R. S. SARKARIA AND A. C. GUPTA, JJ] Land ~4.cquisition Act-Section 23-Market Value-Prirtciple on which Appellate Court interferes. The suit land was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act. The Land A Acquisition Officer awaided Rs. MO per ground as compensation. The City C ~ Civil Court awarded at the rate of Rs. 1000 /- per ground. The High Court on appeal awarded Rs .. 1800 per ground. The appellant himself purchased the ,.. ....- suit land about 10 months before the notification under s. 4 was made at a price of ks. 410 per ground. The appellant spent a little money on filling up the r pond. · HEID : Dismissing the appeal, This Court interferes with the judgment of the High Court only if the High Court applies a principle wrongly or because some important point affecting valuation has been over~looked or misapplied. A court of appeal interferes not when the judgment under attack is not right, but only when it is.shown to be wrong. [404 E-FG] D HELD FURTHER-Market value is ""·hat a willing purchaser will pay a E willing vendor. The best evidence of the value of property is the sale of the very property to which the claimant is a party. If the sale was long ago, the Court \VOuld examine more recent sales of comparab1e lands as throwing better Jigbt on current land value. In the present case, the appellant himself purch.ued the land at the rate of Rs. 410 per ground. [404 H. 405 A.BJ HELD-There is no error in principle in the High Court Judgment nDr hae F any of the limited grounds on which these Court's jurisdiction can be legiti- ' mately exercised been made out. [408-CD] CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 667 of 1968. From the judgment and order dated 31st January, 1967 of the 'Madras High Court in Appeal No. 412 of 1962. N. Natesan, K. Jayaram and R. ChandraseRher, for the appellant Govind Swaminathan, N. S. Sivam, A. V. Rangam and A. Subha· shini, for the respondent. • The Judgment of the Court was delivered by G KRISHNA IYER, J.-This is a pedestrian appeal by a land-owner H whose property, having been acquired compulsorily by the State, asks ~ for more compensation, probably appetised by increases over the Collector's award granted by the City Civil Court and the High Court. The grounds urged are conventional, based on comparison of pri~es shown in land sales in the neighbourhood and the general escalation of urban land values in the country. ·tr- , SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1975] SUPP• S.C.R. ·A 127 odd 'grounds' (a ground is aronnd 5-112 cents; .actually- 2,400 sq. ft) were acquired in 1959 for the i:onstruction of a Hous- r ing Colony for the Madras Port Trust employees by the then :Madras State. They comprise R. S. No. 4032/1 and other items with which we are not concemec~, since the owners of those items have not come up in appeal to this Court .. The relevant notification under s. 4( 1) B was made on August 12, 1959 and so the compensation has to be pegged to the market value as on that date. Of course, 16 years have rolled by since, thanks to delay which bas come to stay in the adminis- trative and forensic processes of our land. That is by the way. The Land Acquisition Officer awarded Rs. 800/- per ground. The City • Civil Court, approaching the problem of valuation plot;wise, as for, a housing colony, made the necessary deductions involved in that C process and awarded at the rate. of Rs. 1,000/- per ground. The .,- High Court, on appeal, made an upward revision, c!iscarding the trial • court's approach and awarded Rs. 1,800/- per ground. The State • has ·not come up in appeal, but the unquenched claimant asks ; for more in appeal, demanding at least Rs. 2,200/- per ground. D E Generally speaking, a cardinal component in the escalation of prices of urban realty which does not find sufficient expression in the ancient Land Acquisition Act, 1894 is the developmental operations inevitable in a rapidly industrialising society for which the individual owner ' makes no social contribution. Be that as it may, courts have to apply the legislation as extant, it being left to the law-makers to har- monize social justice which individual rights by appropriate reforms. We have to proceed to determine the compensation according to the canons crystallized in s. 23 of the Act . . · At ihe outset, we must. warn ourselves of the br
Excerpt shown. Read the full judgment & AI analysis in Lexace.