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Jai Parkash Etc. Etc. vs. Union Territory, Chandigarh Etc. Etc.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 290Decided 10 Mar 2022
Civil Appeal Nos. 1765-1767 of 2022
M.R. Shah · B.V. Nagarathna

Background

In 1999, the Chandigarh Administration acquired roughly 63.7 acres of land across two villages for use by Defence Security Forces. The Land Acquisition Officer initially fixed compensation at about Rs. 6.87 lakh per acre, which a Reference Court raised to about Rs. 9.65 lakh per acre. On further appeal, the High Court relied on two specific sale-deed exhibits to compute an average price of about Rs. 22.57 lakh per acre, then applied a 50% deduction (since those sale instances were of much smaller plots) to arrive at a final compensation of about Rs. 11.3 lakh per acre. The landowners appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing this deduction and valuation were unfair.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court noted that since the Chandigarh Administration had not appealed the High Court's reliance on those two sale exhibits as the best comparable instances, that finding had become final. The real dispute was only about the size of the deduction applied for the smaller comparable plots. Rather than remand the case to the High Court for want of reasoning behind the 50% cut, both sides asked the Supreme Court to fix the appropriate percentage itself. Considering the land's location abutting a National Highway and the size difference between the sale exemplars and the acquired land, the Court reduced the deduction from 50% to 40%, raising the compensation to about Rs. 13.54 lakh per acre, along with all statutory benefits, while carving out one group of appellants from interest on a 1033-day filing delay (though solatium for that period was still allowed).

Lesson Learnt

In land acquisition compensation disputes, once a court's choice of comparable sale instances goes unchallenged, the fight often narrows to the size of the "smallness deduction" applied for comparing large acquired tracts to smaller sold plots, and appellate courts can themselves fix a fairer percentage instead of sending the matter back down for a fresh, reasoned assessment.

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

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