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New Okhla Industrial Development Authority & Anr. v. Rajveer Singh & Ors.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (C.A. No. 13057/2026)Decided 21 Sept 2026
Civil Appeal No. 13057 of 2026 (arising out of SLP(C) No. 18801 of 2025)
Justice J.B. Pardiwala · Justice K. Vinod Chandran

Background

Land belonging to the respondents' predecessors-in-interest was acquired in 1977 under an urgency notification, and they accepted the full compensation awarded without seeking a reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act. Other landowners covered by the same notification did seek a reference, which was rejected by the Reference Court in 1981; their subsequent first appeal was decided by the High Court only in 2022, relying on an earlier connected first-appeal order from 2019 that had enhanced compensation for landowners in the same village. Based on the 2022 order, the respondents filed an application under Section 28A in 2022 seeking the same enhanced compensation, which the Collector rejected as not maintainable, but the High Court allowed it, prompting NOIDA (the acquiring authority) to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court undertook a detailed review of conflicting precedents (Union of India v. Pradeep Kumari, Jose Antonio Cruz, Hansoli Devi, Banwari, Andanayya) on when Section 28A's three-month limitation period begins and whether it can be invoked from a High Court's first-appeal order rather than the Reference Court's award. It held that Section 28A can ordinarily be invoked only from an award of the Reference Court, with a narrow exception (per Banwari) allowing invocation from a High Court first-appeal enhancement only where the applicant's own reference under Section 18 had been rejected outright with no enhancement anywhere in the chain. Here, the true first enhancement for landowners in the respondents' village occurred through the connected First Appeal No. 593 of 1982, decided on 8 July 2019, not the 2022 order the respondents relied on, which merely followed that earlier ruling without independently granting any enhancement. Since the three-month limitation period ran from the 2019 order and expired on 7 October 2019, the 2022 application was time-barred; a later appellate order merely reiterating an earlier enhancement does not restart the limitation clock. The Court allowed the appeal, set aside the High Court's order, and rejected the respondents' Section 28A application.

Lesson Learnt

Under the Land Acquisition Act, the three-month limitation period to claim enhanced compensation under Section 28A runs from the date of the award or order that first actually grants an enhancement, not from a later order that merely follows or reiterates that same enhancement, so landowners must act promptly from the very first enhancing decision affecting their notification/village, not wait for a subsequent order that repeats it.

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

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