The Supreme Court (SC), in Union of India & Another v Tarsem Singh & Others has declared Section 3J of the National Highways Act 1956, to the extent it excludes solatium and interest as per Land Acquisition Act 1894 to acquisitions done under the National Highways Act (NH Act), to be unconstitutional.
Therefore, the provisions of the L A Act relating to solatium and interest contained in Section 23 (1A) and (2) and interest payable in terms of section 28 proviso will apply to acquisitions made under the NH Act. The Section 3J of the Act excluded the application of Land Acquisition Act (LA Act).
The SC says that the concept of solatium, and said that it was granted to the landowner to compensate the compulsory nature of acquisition. Therefore, it was part and parcel of compensation. The solatium to be paid to a landowner is on account of the fact that a landowner, who may not be willing to part with his land, has now to do so, and that too at a value fixed legislatively and not through negotiation, by which, arguably, such land owner would get the best price for the property to be sold.
The NH Act originally had no provisions dealing with land acquisition. These provisions, from Sections 3A to 3J, were incorporated as per 1997 Amendment which was made with the objective of providing for ‘speed acquisition’ of land for NH projects.
The Section 3J of the NH Act was declared unconstitutional because a classification made between different sets of landowners whose lands happen to be acquired for the purpose of National Highways and landowners whose lands are acquired for other public purposes has no rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the Amendment Act, i.e. speedy acquisition of lands for the purpose of National Highways.
The Sc pointed out that the Central Government has issued notification under the new land acquisition act – Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 – making solatium applicable to acquisitions done as per NH Act.
