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The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has asked the Supreme Court of India to review a landmark 2019 judgment that awarded farmers compensation with interest for lands acquired under the National Highways Act. The Court has scheduled an open-court hearing early next week to decide whether the ruling should apply retrospectively or only from now on. The NHAI estimates the financial impact could be around INR 32,000 crore, a sharp jump from the earlier INR 100 crore estimate.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear in open court the NHAI's plea seeking a review of its earlier decision on how compensation is awarded to farmers whose land was acquired under the National Highways Act. The bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan issued a notice and set the hearing for early next week. Advertisement
This matter is tied to the Court's 2019 ruling in which it held that Section 3J of the National Highways Act which excluded the benefits of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 for landowners acquired under the NHAI Act was unconstitutional under Article 14 of the Constitution. The 2019 judgment also affirmed that landowners whose property was acquired by the NHAI between 1997 and 2015 should receive solatium (extra compensation) and interest, and that the ruling would apply retrospectively.
In February of this year the Supreme Court rejected the NHAI's plea for the judgment to apply only from that date onward (prospectively). The Court had said that limiting the decision to future cases would 'nullify the very relief' the 2019 ruling was intended to provide. It also clarified that the judgment did not direct the reopening of land-acquisition cases which had already attained finality.
In its current review petition, NHAI contends that applying the judgment retrospectively will open the flood-gates of compensation claims and impose a heavy burden on the government. The Solicitor General, appearing for NHAI, recently informed the Court that the implications may be around INR 32,000 crore far higher than the earlier figure of INR 100 crore cited in the petition
The hearing in open court indicates how significant this issue is for both landowners and infrastructure authorities. The outcome could affect how compensation for highway land acquisitions is handled going forward and might influence how acquisition authorities plan such projects.
Source PTI
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