SC: No review after final award
On the contentious land acquisition issue turning into a major controversy in almost all the states, the Supreme Court in an important judgment has ruled the final award fixed by it could not be “revisited” in a review petition either by the land owners on the ground that the actual market rate was far higher, or by the government that compensation awarded by the court was much higher.
“While deciding review petitions the Supreme Court cannot make roving inquiries into the validity of the transactions involving the sale of land (cited as examples of higher market value), or declare the same to be invalid by assuming that the vendee had paid higher price to take benefit of an anticipated venture,” a bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and S.J. Mukhopadhaya held.
The ruling came on the Haryana government’s two notifications acquiring nearly 1750 acres of land in Gurgaon district, close to the national capital, in 1995 and 1997.
The first notification covered 256.3 acres in Manesar village and the second 1490.3 acres in Naharpur Kasan and Khoh Kasan villages. The government had fixed the compensation as `3.91 lakh and `4.13 lakh per acre respectively in the two notifications, which was enhanced to Rs 6.57 lakh and `6.89 lakh per acre by a civil court in Gurgaon and to `15 lakh by the Punjab and Haryana high court. As the case came before the Supreme Court in cross appeals by the government and farmers, it enhanced the final compensation award to `20 lakh per acre in 2009.
The state government had filed a review petition against the enhancement by the SC while the farmers sought hiking of the compensation further claiming that the market rate for their land was far higher.
To prove their claim the farmers had cited a 2004 land sale deed of `13.62 crores for 12 acres between Heritage Furniture Ltd and Duracell India Ltd, calculated as `1.13 crores per acre. The argument of the farmers’ counsel was that since the market rate paid by Duracell in 2004 was `1.13 crore per acre, the compensation of `20 lakh fixed by the SC was less.
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