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Ajai Pal Singh & Ors. v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 531Decided 23 Sept 2021
Civil Appeal Nos. 5738-5739 of 2021
Justice M.R. Shah · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

Land belonging to the appellants was acquired in 1976 for NOIDA's industrial development, and the Reference Court enhanced their compensation to a modest per-square-yard rate. The landowners sought a much higher rate (Rs. 297 per sq. yard) by claiming parity with a separate 2004 High Court judgment (the "Mangu" case) that had granted that rate, but that higher rate had actually been fixed for land acquired in 1991, and was mistakenly extended to some unrelated 1977-acquisition appeals that were (by oversight) clubbed together with it.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the Rs. 297 rate could not be relied upon for parity because it stemmed from an inadvertent clubbing error by the High Court, nobody had pointed out that the four other appeals actually concerned a different (1977) acquisition, and review applications against that mistake were already pending. Examining other High Court decisions consistently dealing with the 1976-77 acquisitions in the same area, the Court found the correct, consistently-applied rate was Rs. 28.12 per square yard, which had itself been affirmed by the Supreme Court in an earlier case. The appeals were partly allowed to enhance compensation to that rate, along with statutory benefits, but no further.

Lesson Learnt

A favourable rate obtained by other litigants due to a court's own clubbing or procedural mistake does not create a valid precedent that others can claim parity with; courts will apply the rate that is actually, consistently correct for comparable acquisitions.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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