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Delhi Development Authority v. Maharaj Singh & Ors.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 11256 of 2016)Decided 23 Nov 2016
Civil Appeal No. 11256 of 2016
Justice Kurian Joseph · Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman

Background

This appeal, filed by the Delhi Development Authority, concerned the same category of lapsed land acquisition dispute as several other appeals decided by the same bench in this period, where the DDA sought to preserve its position to acquire the land afresh despite the lapse of the earlier acquisition proceedings.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that the issue was already settled against the appellant by its own earlier rulings in Civil Appeal No. 8477 of 2016 and Civil Appeal No. 5811 of 2015, where identical arguments by the requisitioning authority had already been rejected. Applying that precedent, the appeal was dismissed. The Court nonetheless gave the DDA one year from the date of the order to initiate fresh acquisition proceedings under Section 24(2) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, failing which it must return physical possession of the land (if held) to the original landowners.

Lesson Learnt

This is one of several near-identical rulings issued by the same bench in November 2016 applying a settled precedent: once land acquisition lapses, the acquiring authority gets a fixed one-year window to restart the process, after which possession must revert to the landowner if no fresh notification is issued.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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