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Land Acquisition Collector (South), New Delhi and Anr. vs. Suresh B. Kapur & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 1245Decided 2 Dec 2022
Civil Appeal No. 8197 of 2022
M.R. Shah · M.M. Sundresh · C.T. Ravikumar as the second judge

Background

Land in Chattarpur village, New Delhi was acquired via a Section 4 notification in 1980, followed by a Section 6 declaration in 1985. The acquisition survived decades of litigation (including the Balak Ram Gupta and Gurdeep Singh Uban cases and a dismissed Supreme Court special leave petition), and compensation for the land was ultimately deposited with the Court in 2013. In 2015, the landowner filed a writ petition claiming the acquisition had lapsed under Section 24(2) of the 2013 Act because possession had never been taken over (even though compensation had been deposited). The Delhi High Court, relying on its own earlier ruling in Gyanender Singh and on the (since-overruled) Pune Municipal Corporation precedent, held that mere deposit of compensation in court, without actually tendering it to the landowner, did not count as "payment," and since possession also hadn't been taken, declared the acquisition lapsed. The Land Acquisition Collector appealed.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court's reasoning could not survive the Constitution Bench ruling in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal (2020), which expressly overruled Pune Municipal Corporation and clarified that lapse under Section 24(2) requires BOTH non-possession AND non-payment of compensation. If either condition is satisfied (here, compensation had been deposited in court), there is no lapse. The Court also held that the reason possession could not be taken over was itself the landowners' own prolonged litigation challenging the acquisition, which could not now be turned around to benefit them with a claim of lapse. It further held that the prior dismissal of an appeal against the Gyanender Singh ruling could not be relied on, since that dismissal predated the Constitution Bench's authoritative settlement of the legal question. The High Court's judgment was quashed and the appeal was allowed.

Lesson Learnt

Under Section 24(2) of the 2013 land acquisition law, deposit of compensation in court counts as valid "payment" for the purpose of preventing a deemed lapse (following Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal), and landowners who themselves delay an acquisition through prolonged litigation cannot later claim that the resulting delay in taking possession makes the acquisition lapse in their favour.

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

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