NEW DELHI: Giving quietus to a 30-year-old litigation that meandered through a three-tier judicial system and resulted in different compensation rates for landowners near Noida’s commercial hub in Sector 18, the Supreme Court has resorted to its omnibus powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to award uniform compensation of Rs 403 per square yard.
The case got complicated with different batches of landowners getting different rates of compensation: Rs 340 per sq yd fixed by the Allahabad High Court, which was upheld by the SC in 2014, the SC fixing Rs 449 per sq yd in 2017 in another batch of cases filed by separate landowners and based on which the HC granting similar compensation to yet another batch of landowners.
To make it worse, the Noida authority challenged the HC granting Rs 449 per sq yd and a stream of landowners moving the SC for enhancing their compensation to Rs 449 per sq yd as granted by the apex court in 2017.
A bench of Justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan shifted through voluminous records and examined whether the landowners or the Noida authority were right in their contention and found that the SC in its 2017 judgment fixing Rs 449 per sq yd was palpably wrong.
But it being the judgment of a coordinate bench, which has attained finality, the bench stepped around that group of landowners and examined afresh the just and fair compensation to be awarded to the landowners in the batch of petitions posted before it.
Writing the judgment and without disturbing the 2017 SC decision, Justice Kant said, “with a view to put a quietus on this long-standing dispute, the landowners’ appeals are allowed in part; the appeals by Noida authorities against the grant of compensation are also allowed in part, such that the rate of compensation is enhanced from Rs 340 per sq yd to Rs 403 per sq yd and where HC had granted Rs 449 per sq yd based on the 2017 SC judgment, it is reduced Rs 403 per sq yd.”
Justices Kant and Viswanathan said in guesstimating the fair and just compensation to landowners, the courts must keep in mind three factors — character of the land, its future potentiality and factors denoting market sentiment.
The bench said the proximity of the land at village Chhalera Bangar to Sector 18, its connectivity to Delhi’s important locations and its development potential certainly increased the potential of the land to fetch a higher price in market. The lands in the village were acquired in 1991 and a compensation of Rs 110 per sq yd was fixed by the land acquisition officer in 1992.
Though the bench found the court mistakenly enhanced the compensation to Rs 449 per sq yd in 2017, it decided not to disturb that finding. However, though the SC had dismissed appeals against HC determined Rs 340 per sq yd compensation in 2014, it decided to resort to its powers under Article 142 to “do complete justice” to enhance the compensation for them to Rs 403 per sq yd.
