Allahabad HC Upholds 2024 Land Acquisition Award for Varanasi's Transport Nagar; Rejects Petitioners' Bid to Apply 2013 Act
A Division Bench dismissed three connected writ petitions challenging a January 2024 award by Varanasi's Special Land Acquisition Officer, holding the award squarely complied with earlier court directions and Supreme Court precedent in Delhi Airtech Services.
The High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, in a judgment authored by Justice Kunal Ravi Singh on behalf of a Division Bench also comprising Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi, dismissed three connected civil writ petitions filed by over 330 land-losers challenging a compensation award dated 10 January 2024 passed by the Special Land Acquisition Officer, Varanasi. The acquisition — initiated in December 2000 under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 for establishing a Transport Nagar in villages Karnadadi, Birwan, Milki Chak and Sarai Mohan in District Varanasi — had already survived three earlier rounds of litigation before the same court. The bench held that the impugned award followed the directions issued by a coordinate bench in 2023 and was consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling in Delhi Airtech Services Private Limited v. State of U.P., reported at 2024 (17) SCC 610.
Four Rounds of Litigation Over a Single Acquisition
The acquisition chain begins with a gazette notification under Section 4(1) read with Section 17(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 dated 18 December 2000, followed by a corrigendum on 15 March 2001 and a Section 6 declaration on 9 April 2001. Notice under Section 9 was issued on 25 June 2001. Possession of the notified land was taken and transferred to the Varanasi Development Authority on 17 April 2003.
The land-losers had participated in compensation meetings held on 27 April 2011 under the chairmanship of the District Magistrate, Varanasi. The meeting fixed compensation at Rs. 1.50 lakh per biswa for land within 30 metres of the road and Rs. 1 lakh per biswa for land beyond that distance. Agreements were executed by tenure-holders and awards were made in 2012 for a portion of the acquired area. However, no award was made for a segment of land-losers — the petitioners in the present proceedings.
The first round of litigation, Writ-C No. 15586 of 2001, challenged the acquisition notifications including on the ground of dispensation of enquiry under Section 5-A. It was dismissed on 4 October 2002. The second round, Writ-C No. 29419 of 2008, raised the lapsing of acquisition under Section 11-A of the 1894 Act. A coordinate bench rejected it on 29 July 2008, holding that possession had been taken in accordance with law. The third round, Writ-C No. 61219 of 2011, arose when compensation meetings were being convened. That bench, by judgment dated 31 May 2023, bifurcated the petitioners: those for whom awards had already been made and those for whom no award or compensation existed. For the second group — the present petitioners — it directed the State to decide within six weeks whether to retain the acquired land and, if so, to make an award in accordance with Delhi Airtech Services and Aligarh Development Authority v. Megh Singh, 2016 (12) SCC 504.
That 2023 judgment was challenged before the Supreme Court in SLP(C) No. 20832 of 2023 (Jagmani Devi v. State of Uttar Pradesh). No interim order was passed and the SLP remained pending. During its pendency, a contempt application was also filed before the Allahabad High Court, which remained undischarged at the time of this judgment. The Special Land Acquisition Officer subsequently passed the award dated 10 January 2024, which became the subject of the present three writ petitions.
The Award and the Petitioners' Challenge
In Writ-C No. 18752 of 2024 (the leading petition), 154 petitioners sought quashing of the 10 January 2024 award for lands in villages Bairwan and Karnadadi in Tehsil Sadar, Raja Talab, District Varanasi. In Writ-C No. 19422 of 2024, 49 petitioners sought quashing of the same award and directions to protect their possession over lands in villages Bairavan and Karanadadi. In Writ-C No. 36353 of 2023, 130 petitioners sought directions to remove obstructions such as pillars and barbed wire, mutation of revenue records, and protection of possession.
Senior counsel for the petitioners advanced three main arguments. First, the award was passed under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 when the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 should have been applied instead. Second, the market value had been computed with reference to the award dated 20 September 2012, whereas it ought to have been computed as of 1 January 2014, the date of enforcement of the 2013 Act. Third, the 80% of estimated compensation required under Section 17(3-A) of the 1894 Act was not deposited before possession was taken, rendering the vesting incomplete and making Section 11-A applicable, which would cause the acquisition to lapse. Counsel also contended that the Authority had diverted the acquired land from its stated purpose of establishing a Transport Nagar and was instead selling it at commercial rates to private entities.
The Authority's Defence and the Precedential Framework
Senior counsel for the Varanasi Development Authority countered each ground. On the question of the applicable statute, he argued that the award was passed pursuant to the specific directions of the coordinate bench in Writ-C No. 61219 of 2011, which itself directed compliance with Delhi Airtech Services — a case decided under the 1894 Act. On the Section 17(3-A) point, he submitted that the counter affidavit in the earlier round of litigation had established that the entire compensation was deposited prior to 2012, a finding that had been conclusively returned by the coordinate bench. That ground was therefore not available in fresh proceedings. He argued that the present challenge was confined to whether the 10 January 2024 award conformed to the directions in the 2023 judgment and to Delhi Airtech Services.
The Division Bench examined the operative directions in Delhi Airtech Services closely. The Supreme Court had there held that Section 11-A of the 1894 Act applies where the acquiring authority has not complied with Section 17(3-A) by tendering 80% of the estimated compensation before taking possession, because in such cases the vesting is not absolute. Where the 80% requirement is satisfied, Section 11-A does not apply and the land-losers' remedy is to enforce the award and recover compensation. In the particular facts of that case, the Supreme Court — despite holding Section 11-A applicable — moulded the relief and directed that market value be determined as of a specific date under the 1894 Act yardstick, with statutory benefits calculated from the date of the Section 4 notification.
How the Bench Reasoned
The bench noted that the ground of non-deposit of 80% compensation under Section 17(3-A) had been raised and negated in the second and third rounds of litigation. In the third round, the court had relied on the State's counter affidavit to hold that compensation was deposited prior to 2012. The petitioners were bound by that finding. The mere pendency of the SLP before the Supreme Court, without an interim order, did not suspend the binding force of the 2023 judgment of the coordinate bench.
Turning to the impugned award, the bench found that the Special Land Acquisition Officer had taken 20 September 2012 — the date of the earlier awards for the first group of land-losers — as the reference date for market value. Statutory benefits were calculated on that basis. The bench held this was precisely what Delhi Airtech Services required: where the acquisition does not lapse, the market value is determined from the date of the earlier award made in respect of the same acquisition.
The court held that the conditions in paragraph 36.2 of Delhi Airtech Services applied because possession had been taken in 2003 and compensation paid. Since the Supreme Court in that case had not held the acquisition to lapse but had moulded the relief by directing determination of market value as per the earlier award and computation of statutory benefits accordingly, the present impugned award — which followed the same methodology — was in conformity with law.
On the argument that the 2013 Act should govern market value computation, the bench rejected it outright. The 2023 judgment of the coordinate bench had specifically directed an award under the framework of Delhi Airtech Services, which operates under the 1894 Act. That direction was binding and the challenge premised on the 2013 Act's enforcement date of 1 January 2014 was therefore unsustainable.
The contention that the Authority had changed the public purpose of the acquisition was dismissed on the ground that it was available to the petitioners in earlier rounds of litigation but was never raised. The present round was confined to the legality of the award made pursuant to the 2023 directions. Once the award was found to conform to those directions, no other ground of challenge survived.
Outcome
All three writ petitions — Writ-C No. 18752 of 2024, Writ-C No. 19422 of 2024, and Writ-C No. 36353 of 2023 — were dismissed by the Division Bench on 7 August 2026. No order as to costs was made. As a consequence of the award being upheld in the leading petition, the bench disposed of Writ-C No. 19422 of 2024 on the same basis and dismissed Writ-C No. 36353 of 2023 without issuing any separate directions, since the prayer for removal of obstructions and mutation of revenue records was rendered moot.