Award inquiry: an unregistered tenant claims a share of compensation
The Collector has issued notices under section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 for acquiring 12 kanals (1.5 acres) out of a 40-kanal holding in Chak 108/GB for widening a provincial highway. The recorded owner is Malik Sher Muhammad. One Ghulam Abbas, who has cultivated 20 kanals of the same holding for eleven years, appears at the award inquiry claiming compensation for (i) the standing wheat crop, (ii) a tube-well and watercourse he installed at his own cost, and (iii) the loss of his tenancy. He produces rent receipts signed by the owner for the last three years but no registered lease. The owner disputes everything and says Ghulam Abbas is a tenant-at-will who was asked to leave last year. The Land Acquisition Collector has assessed market value at PKR 2.4 million per kanal; a neighbour's registered sale deed for comparable soil, executed six months earlier, shows PKR 1.7 million per kanal. The award amount has already been deposited by the department.
1. Is Ghulam Abbas a 'person interested'? What should the Collector do with his claim at the stage of the award?
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The expression 'person interested' in the Act is not confined to the recorded owner; it includes every person claiming an interest in the compensation to be paid on account of the acquisition. A cultivator who has raised crops and built a tube-well at his own cost plainly claims such an interest, so Ghulam Abbas must be heard - but hearing him is different from accepting his claim.
For (i) and (ii) the claim is for things he himself brought into existence: crops standing on the acquired strip and improvements he funded. These are capable of valuation on evidence - a crop inspection, receipts for the tube-well, the patwari's crop-entry - and can be considered in the award.
For (iii) his tenancy is disputed. The absence of a registered lease and the owner's assertion that he was asked to leave make the tenancy an issue the Collector cannot decide as a revenue officer; it is a question of title between private parties.
So the correct course is to record him as a claimant, consider any independently proved crop and improvement value, and separately refer the apportionment of the compensation to the court, depositing the amount until the dispute is resolved. He must not be paid out of hand, and he must not be ignored.
2. The Collector's own assessment of PKR 2.4 million per kanal is well above a comparable sale at PKR 1.7 million. How should the award be reasoned?
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The award must justify its own figure, because the comparable sale is the strongest evidence against it and the owner will quote the higher number while the department's auditors will quote the lower one.
The Collector should set out, factor by factor, why the assessed value departs from the six-month-old deed: whether the comparable plot had inferior frontage, worse access, a different soil class or an encumbrance; whether the acquired strip's highway frontage after widening gives it a special adaptability that the comparable lacked; and whether the 12-kanal strip severs the remaining 28 kanals, causing injurious affection to the retained land, which is a legitimate head of consideration. Each of these must be supported by something on the file - a patwari's soil note, a site plan, photographs, the road alignment drawing - not by assertion.
At the same time, the award must exclude what the law does not permit: no allowance for the fact that the land is being taken compulsorily, no speculative 'development' premium, no sentimental value. If the higher figure cannot be supported by evidence on the file, the honest course is to reduce it before the award is announced, because an inflated award that is later cut on reference damages the office's credibility as much as a low one.
3. What procedural steps remain before the award can be announced and payment made, given the deposit and the dispute?
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Several things must be closed out in order.
Record of the inquiry: the section 9 notices and the date of the public notice must be on file with proof of service; objections and statements recorded under section 9 must be signed by the parties; the notice must have been published in the manner required so that persons interested in the land could appear.
The award itself: it must be a written award under the signature of the Collector, stating the area, the value of the land, the value of improvements and crops where allowed, and the apportionment of the amount among the persons interested, with the reasons for each figure.
The disputed portion: because the owner and the cultivator are at issue, the amount attributable to the disputed claim should not be paid to either. The Collector may deposit it and refer the apportionment question to the court for decision, paying the undisputed portion to the recorded owner with receipts.
Notice of the award: the parties must be informed of the award and, importantly, of their right to seek a reference to the court if they accept the amount under protest. A party who is merely told the figure and not told the remedy will later say he was never informed.