Highway land acquisition: SC rules owners entitled to solatium, interest

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 20

Besides compensation, land owners are entitled to get solatium and interest for the land compulsorily acquired for constructing highways, the Supreme Court has ruled.

The ruling came on a batch of petitions filed by Union of India challenging a Punjab and Haryana High Court verdict which said non-grant of solatium and interest to lands acquired under the National Highways Act — which is available if lands are acquired under the Land Acquisition Act — was bad in law.

The top court upheld the High Court’s decision to strike down Section 3J of the National Highways Act, 1956 on the ground that it violated Article 14 of the Constitution  which guarantees right to equality and works as a bulwark against arbitrariness in government actions. Section 3J said Land Acquisition Act provisions would not apply to NH Act.

The case relates to acquisition of land in 2004-05 for four-laning of National Highway No. 1-A on certain stretches of Jalandhar-Pathankot section and Pathankot-Jammu section in Punjab. The top court said provisions of the Land Acquisition Act relating to solatium and interest would also apply to land acquisitions under the National Highways Act 1956. 

The NH Act was amended in 1997 to obviate any delay in taking away of the land for quick construction of highways. The Land Acquisition Act, 1893 was repealed and replaced by the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 under which solatium is equivalent to 100 per cent of the market value multiplied by factors such as rural or urban, constituted minimum compensation package to be given to those whose land is being acquired.

On behalf of the Centre, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had submitted that the law was amended in 2015 to extend benefit of solatium and interest for all land acquisitions including for national highways. The National Highways Authority of India had contended that it was not possible to choose between one law and another as NH Act alone would apply in cases where land was acquired for construction of National Highways.