Prior awards cannot be mechanically applied where location, land use, and area materially differ.

The State of Haryana acquired 378 kanal 9 marla of land situated in Village Tosham, Tehsil Tosham, District Bhiwani, for construction of a road connecting the New Bye-Pass Tosham–Bhiwani Road with the Tosham–Hisar Road, pursuant to notifications under Sections 4 and 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, dated 11 February 2011 and 10 September 2011, respectively.

The Land Acquisition Collector awarded compensation at ₹12,00,000 per acre by award dated 22 June 2012.

Upon references under Section 18 of the 1894 Act, the Reference Court, by common award dated 18 February 2025, assessed the market value at ₹27,00,000 per acre for land up to two acres from the road and ₹24,00,000 per acre for land beyond two acres, together with 20% severance charges.

Both the landowners and the State challenged the award: the landowners sought further enhancement, while the State sought reduction of the compensation.

The landowners relied upon an earlier judgment in RFA No. 6989 of 2014, as modified by the Supreme Court, in which adjoining land had been valued at ₹73,91,062 per acre.

The State contended that the earlier award was distinguishable because it concerned smaller residential plots abutting a main road, whereas the present acquisition involved a substantially larger area of agricultural land.

The Court applied Section 54 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, governing appeals against awards of the Reference Court, and Section 23(1), which requires determination of compensation on the basis of the market value of the land as on the date of the Section 4 notification; post-notification sale deeds ordinarily cannot be relied upon, although they may be considered where appropriate pre-notification exemplars are unavailable.

The Court further applied the principle that market value must reflect the land’s potentiality, location, surrounding development and comparable transactions, while making appropriate adjustments for differences in size, use and location.

Relying on Manoj Kumar and Others v. State of Haryana , 2018 (13) SCC 96, the Court held that a previous award cannot be mechanically adopted where the earlier acquisition involved different land characteristics, location or valuation material.

The Court also referred, by analogy, to Explanation 3 to Section 26(1) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, observing that a previous award of the same district cannot automatically determine market value, particularly where relevant sale exemplars are available.

The Court upheld the Reference Court’s assessment because the acquired land possessed substantial development potential.

The applicable collector rate for land intended for a stone crusher or other industry was ₹16,00,000 per acre, and ₹18,00,000 per acre where the land abutted the existing State Highway.

The land was situated near mines and crushers and in the vicinity of shops, residential colonies, a police station, Mini Secretariat, Civil Court and the SDM’s residence.

These factors demonstrated that the land could not fairly be valued merely as ordinary agricultural land or at the low values reflected in the State’s sale deeds.

The Reference Court’s 50% enhancement over the applicable collector rate was therefore held reasonable.

The Court rejected the landowners’ reliance on the earlier award because that acquisition concerned only approximately 8.33 acres of land abutting a main road and the valuation was based on smaller residential plots.

In contrast, the present acquisition involved approximately 47 acres of agricultural land situated away from the highway, with different locational and usage characteristics.

The earlier award therefore could not be treated as a controlling exemplar under the principle stated in Manoj Kumar .

The award of 20% severance charges was also sustained because the State accepted that the acquisition had bifurcated the land and caused loss to the landowners.

However, since the Reference Court had not specified whose land was actually bifurcated, the Court directed the Executing Court to verify that fact before releasing compensation.

Delays in filing the connected appeals were condoned by consent, but no interest was granted for the delayed period.

The Executing Court was directed to determine whether each landowner’s land had in fact been bifurcated; only such landowners would be entitled to severance charges.

Pending applications were also disposed of.