An Inadvertent Survey-Number Error Cannot Justify Rejecting a Section 28A Application Without Allowing Correction.

The petitioner sought, under Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, the benefit of a Reference Court award dated 29 July 2005 concerning acquired land.

He filed his application on 5 August 2005, but mistakenly described the land as Survey No. 63 instead of Survey No. 73; he supplied the correct survey number in a reminder dated 7 July 2010.

The Special Land Acquisition Officer rejected the application on 31 July 2010 because of the incorrect survey number.

The petitioner challenged that order in 2018, without explaining the eight-year delay or stating when he learned of the rejection.

1. Whether the rejection of the Section 28A application solely for the incorrect survey number was justified, despite the petitioner’s later correction of that description.

2. Whether the petitioner’s unexplained eight-year delay in challenging the rejection affected the relief, including his entitlement to interest.

Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 provides a mechanism for a landowner who was not a party to a reference to seek redetermination of compensation on the basis of a Reference Court award; the Court noted that the application was made within the prescribed three-month period.

The Court treated an inadvertent error in the description of the land as a matter that the competent authority could have allowed the applicant to correct before deciding the application on its merits, rather than as a sufficient basis for hyper-technical rejection.

It also applied the principle that unexplained delay may limit discretionary relief, here by restricting interest for the period attributable to the petitioner’s inaction.

The original application was filed within three months of the Reference Court award, and the petitioner later provided the correct survey number in his 2010 reminder.

The authority therefore could have required correction of the land description and then considered the application on its merits; rejecting it solely because the original application contained the wrong survey number was hyper-technical.

Although the State filed no reply and the petition’s averments remained uncontroverted, the Court separately considered the petitioner’s unexplained eight-year delay in approaching the High Court and limited the interest payable accordingly.

The authority was directed to decide the application preferably within two months of receiving the order.

The petitioner was entitled to interest only up to 31 July 2010; no interest would accrue for the subsequent period attributable to his unexplained delay.

If the authority failed to decide the application within the two-month period, interest would accrue from the expiry of that period until a fresh decision and payment or deposit.