TMI Blog1955 (3) TMI 56X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he provisions of the Act, several plots of cultivated and waste lands in village Larpank were acquired by the Government Plaintiff-respondent Bharat Chandra Nayak is the sole Gountia of the said village Larpank. Out of 13.66 acres of respondent's lands which were acquired under the provisions of the Act by the Government, 10.62 acres are Bhogra and 3.04 are gaonti-raiyati lands. There were quite a number of trees, standing on these lands, acquired under the provisions of the Act, such as, Mango, Tamarind, Mahul, Char, etc. The Government offered a sum of ₹ 4044-8-6, as compensation for the land and trees, but the respondent having objected to the amount of compensation laid his claim at ₹ 38,305/-. In these circumstances, the matter was referred to the Arbitrator for fixation of compensation under R. 9 of the Rules framed under the Act. In the present case the notifications of acquisition were made on 22-9-1948, 21-2-1949 and 12-3-1949. 3. The main point for determination in the present cases is the quantum of compensation and the principles under which the quantum is fixed. The State strongly relies upon the first proviso to Section 7(1)(e) of the Act as laying ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... mpensation on the market value of the lands on the date of the notification of acquisition, or the market value of the lands acquired on the first day of September, 1939, with an addition of fifty per cent, whichever is less. It is needless to say, so far as the present acquisitions are concerned, that the value of the lands and the trees on the dates of acquisition must be several times more than the value on the first day of September, 1939, that is, the pre-war valuation. It is a notorious fact that the market value of the lands in the year 1939 was just a small fragment of the value of the year 1949 which must be at least five times the value of the lands in 1939. The manifest position, therefore, is that the value of the lands acquired in the years 1948 and 1949, according to the rate prevailing in 1939, can never be taken to be reasonable and just compensation. Compensation must always necessarily mean a just, reasonable and equivalent price of the land acquired, 4. We will now take up Article 31 of the Constitution which runs as follows; 31. (1) No person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law, (2) No property, movable or immovable, includin ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e Legislature will entitle the Government to acquire lands at a merely nominal value. Without discussing the matter any further, we will observe that the matter has been concluded by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of -- 'State of West Bengal v. Mrs. Bella Banerjee', (A). There the impugned Act (The West Bengal Land Development and Planning Act (21 of 1948)) lays down the principle for fixation of compensation in the following terms : provided that * * * (b) in determining the amount of compensation to be awarded for land acquired in pursuance of this Act the market value referred to in Clause (1) of Sub-section (1) of Section 23 of the said Act shall be deemed to be the market value of the land on the date of publication of the notification under Sub-section (1) of Section 4 for the notified area in which the land is included subject to the following condition, that is to say, if such market value exceed by any amount the market value of the land on 31-12-1946, on the assumption that the land had been at that date in the state in which it in fact was on the date of publication of the said notification, the amount of such excess shall not be taken ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... contravening Article 31(2) of the Constitution. The decision on this point will dispose of Civil Reference No. 2 of 1953 wherein learned Subordinate Judge of Sambalpur by his judgment dated 29-4-1953 made a reference under Section 113, Civil P. C. 7. Now, therefore, the compensation is to be fixed on the principles laid down under Section 23, Land Acquisition Act (Central Act No. 1) of 1894, that is to say, according to the market value of the acquired land on the date of acquisition. 8. We will now take up the valuation of the Bhogra lands. Out of 10.62 acres of Bhogra land acquired by Government, 2.78 acres are Bahal (first class), 85 Berna (second class), 1.64 Mal (third class) and nearly half of the area of the total acre age, that is, 5.34 acres are Atta (dry land of the worst class). It is the settled law that the Gountias have free right to transfer their proprietary interest as well as all their rights. There is no challenge to this position. On the Government side no witness had been examined as to the market value of these lands in the years 1948 and 1949, The Government also had not produced any sale-deed; but nevertheless the learned advocate appearing for the St ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... . The other witnesses also do not improve the case. The evidence of these witnesses were also placed before us and we are of the view that it is absolutely unsafe to be guided by their evidence. The Arbitrator therefore, having rightly discarded the oral evidence on record, had, no other alternative but to fall back upon Hamid's Settlement Report of 1926 in order to get at the annual gross produce of the Bhogra lands in village Larpank. In para. 47 at p. 49 of the Report, the cultivated land in the district of Sambalpur is divided into 30 classes. In para. 24 at p. 21, the estimate of the gross yield of each variety of land is given. To our mind, in the absence of any other evidence as to the annual yield of the Bhogra lands, this Settlement Report which is an authorised one may be accepted as a safe guide. On the basis of the figures available from this Report, the annual gross yield of the objector's Bhogra lands is as follows: Area of land acquired. Average gross Produce per acre acc. to Hamid Settlement report. Actual produce per acre based On soil factor soil unit rate. Gross produce from the acre ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s found by the Arbitrator. The compensation in respect of these 10.62 acres of Bhogra lands, therefore is ₹ 7,710/8/-. The Arbitrator has rightly deducted from this amount twenty times the deduced rent as the land-lord's share out of which fifteen times would go as the Government's share and five times as Gountia's share. The deduced Dharja-jama being ₹ 5/-/8, the landlord's share is ₹ 80/10/8, out of which the Government's share is ₹ 60/8/- and the Gountia's share is ₹ 20/2/8. Deducting the Government's share from out of the total compensation therefore the respondent is entitled to get ₹ 7,650/- as compensation for the acquisition of Bhogra lands of 10.62 acres in village Larpank. 10. We will now take up gounti-raiyati lands. The main question in this connexion is whether these lands are saleable or not. If they are saleable, the compensation for these lands should be Valued exactly as the Bhogra lands, that is, sixteen times the net produce of the lands. But if they are non-saleable, the Gountia is only entitled to five hundred times of the deduced rent as agreed upon by the parties in respect of the non-salea ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e highest class of tenancy rights are those of absolute occupancy tenants. The heritability and transferability of such rights are provided for under Section 41. The incidents of other two kinds of tenants, that is, occupancy tenants and ordinary tenants, are provided for under Sections 46 and 71 of the Act. If they are not occupancy tenancy rights they are to be governed according to the incidents of ordinary tenants which are still more non-transferable. Indeed there are some decisions to show that a gaontia cannot he a tenant under himself, but nevertheless he is a raiyat under the Government and is a holder of a survey number like other raiyats of the village and is subject to the provisions of revenue law governing such raiyats. Under Section 67-E, C. P. Land Revenue Act it is provided that the right of a Government raiyat in a survey-number held by him shall devolve as if it were land, but is not transferable except to a person who, if he survived the raiyat, would inherit his right, or to a co-sharer in such right, or, with the permission of the Deputy Commissioner, by a lease to a sub-tenant cultivating under the raiyat. There is no provision either in the Land Revenue A ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ngo, Tamarind and Mahul. The Arbitrator has fixed the valuation as follows: Description No. of trees. Rate per tree. Total value. Bahada (2 ) 8/- 32-0-0 Tamarind (20 ) (1@) 35/- 735-0-0 Char (8 ) (463@) 3/- 1413-0-0 Mahul (2 ) (28@) 35/- 1050-0-0 Mango (6 ) 40/- 240-0-0 Khajuri (1 ) 10/- 10-0-0 Palasa (22 ) - 6-9-0 Sahaja (9@) - 12-12-6 Rohen (1@) - 4-4-6 Bara (1@) - 1-4-0 According to us, the fair and equitable value should be at the following rate : Bahada (2 ) (2@) 4/- 16-0-0 Tamarind (20 ) (1@) ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , is regarding the costs of cultivation. The Arbitrator has deducted half of the gross-produce as the costs of cultivation whereas the objector-respondent contends that one-third of the gross-produce is sufficient to meet the costs of cultivation and relies upon some observations in the Settlement Report of the year 1926. As we have already found, on account of extraordinary rise in the costs of cultivation after 1942 the Arbitrator was perfectly justified in deducting half of the gross-produce towards costs of cultivation. There is therefore no point in the cross-appeals which are accordingly dismissed without costs. Regarding First Appeal No. 20/1953. This First Appeal is in respect of 1.88 acres of raiyati land in village Larpank, acquired by the Government under the provisions of the Act (Orissa Act No. 18 of 1948), belonging to Shrimati Manorama Devi, the respondent. As agreed upon by the State of Orissa, the appellant, the respondent's compensation is fixed at 500 times of the deduced rent. The Arbitrator has allowed compensation on that basis and the award for ₹ 879/11/- for the aforesaid land passed by the Arbitrator carrying interest at the rate of six(6) p ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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