Landowners Keep Enhanced Compensation After State Fails To Deny Its Office Lost Their Timely Section 28-A Application: Jharkhand HC

Land measuring 0.205 acres in Heramdaga was acquired for the Bhairwa Waterfall Project. The Collector awarded the landowners ₹34,544.82, which they received.

In a separate reference arising from the same acquisition, compensation was enhanced to ₹8,923 per decimal; that award was not challenged by the State and attained finality.

The respondents alleged that they had applied under Section 28-A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 on 9 August 2008, within three months of the enhancement award, but that the application was lost by the Land Acquisition Officer’s office.

The Officer did not determine the Section 28-A application and instead referred the matter to the Special Land Acquisition Court, which passed the award under appeal.

The Deputy Commissioner appealed, principally contending that the Section 28-A claim was time-barred.

Section 28-A(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 permits an interested person who did not seek a Section 18 reference to apply to the Collector for re-determination within three months of the Court’s award, excluding the day of pronouncement and the time required to obtain a copy; under subsections (2) and (3), the Collector must determine the claim, and an aggrieved person may then seek a reference to Court.

Under Order VIII Rules 3, 4 and 5 of the Code of Civil Procedure, material factual allegations must be specifically denied; an allegation left unanswered may be treated as admitted.

The Court also relied on the reasoning of the coordinate Bench in F.A. No. 70 of 2024, which held that where the competent authority had not rejected a Section 28-A claim, including on limitation, the claim could not be treated as time-barred at that stage.

The respondents specifically pleaded that they had filed their Section 28-A application within the statutory three-month period and that it was subsequently lost in the Officer’s office. The State’s response did not deny that allegation; applying Order VIII Rules 3–5, the Court treated it as admitted.

The loss or non-processing of the application was attributable to State inaction, which could not confer a limitation advantage on the State.

The Court further applied the coordinate Bench’s reasoning: the competent authority had neither rejected the application as time-barred nor determined it under Section 28-A, and therefore the State could not successfully raise limitation in the appeal.

The Court did not separately determine the propriety of the Section 18 reference as an independent issue.

As the enhanced compensation in the underlying Section 18 reference had attained finality and no other contention was raised, the appeal was dismissed as meritless; pending interlocutory applications were disposed of.