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Government of NCT of Delhi vs M/S BSK Realtors LLP

Not available · 2024 INSC 455Decided 17 May 2024
Not available
Justice Surya Kant · Justice Dipankar Datta

Background

Land belonging to BSK Realtors LLP in Delhi's Chattarpur village was acquired decades ago under the old Land Acquisition Act, 1894. In 2016, relying on the Supreme Court's then-prevailing view in Pune Municipal Corporation v. Harakchand Misirimal Solanki, the Delhi High Court held the acquisition had "lapsed" under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act because possession was not taken/compensation not fully paid. The Delhi Development Authority's appeal against that ruling was dismissed in 2016. In 2020, however, a 5-judge Constitution Bench in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal overruled Pune Municipal Corporation, holding that lapse requires both non-payment of compensation AND non-taking of possession together. The Government of NCT of Delhi then sought to reopen the BSK Realtors matter (and dozens of similarly-situated, tagged cases across Delhi) in light of this changed law, raising questions about whether a second round of litigation was even legally permissible.

Decision Breakdown

A three-judge bench decided this lead case together with over 80 connected land acquisition matters, sorting them into groups based on their procedural posture. The Court held that the doctrine of merger did not bar the Government from bringing fresh appeals despite the earlier round having been dismissed, given the intervening authoritative change in law by the Constitution Bench. Rather than deciding each case individually on technical grounds, the Court invoked its special constitutional power under Article 142 to do "complete justice," and issued a uniform, practical scheme: acquiring authorities were given one more year (from 1 August 2024) to complete fresh acquisition and pay compensation, various procedural requirements of the newer 2013 Act (like a fresh Social Impact Assessment) were dispensed with to speed things up, and old notifications under the 1894 Act were treated as valid preliminary notifications for this purpose. Cases where fraud or subsequent-purchaser disputes were alleged were sent back to the High Court for fact-finding, and a handful of unrelated/wrongly tagged matters were separated out for independent listing.

Lesson Learnt

When thousands of similarly situated land-acquisition disputes are affected by a single change in Supreme Court law, the Court can use its Article 142 powers to craft one uniform, practical roadmap for everyone rather than forcing each landowner and authority through years of repetitive individual litigation, but affected landowners must still watch for and respond to the fresh acquisition/compensation process within the timelines set.

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

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