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

The State acquired 0.20 acres of land in Village Heramdaga for the Bhairwa Waterfall Project and initially awarded compensation of ₹8,526.89, which the landowners accepted

Other landowners obtained enhanced compensation of ₹8,923 per decimal in a reference under Section 18 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894; that award was not challenged by the State and attained finality

The respondents claimed that they had applied under Section 28-A within three months of that award, but that their application was lost by the Land Acquisition Officer’s office

Instead of deciding the Section 28-A claim, the Special Land Acquisition Officer referred the matter to the Civil Court under Section 18, which passed the impugned award

The Deputy Commissioner appealed, principally alleging that the Section 28-A application was time-barred

The Court also recorded that the appeal had abated against the legal representatives of two deceased respondents, who had not been substituted

Section 28-A(1) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 requires an application for redetermination to be made to the Collector within three months of the Court’s award, excluding the day of pronouncement and the time required to obtain a copy; under Sections 28-A(2) and (3), the Collector must first determine the claim, and a dissatisfied applicant may then seek a reference to the Court

Applying Order VIII Rules 3–5 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the Court stated that material facts must be specifically denied and that facts not denied may be treated as admitted

The Court also relied on the reasoning in F.A. No. 70 of 2024, which referred to Pradeep Kumari and a 2024 Supreme Court decision, that a Section 28-A claim cannot be treated as time-barred where the competent authority has not rejected it on limitation and has instead referred the matter to Court

The Court further applied the principle that where an appeal against a common, non-severable award abates against some parties, the appeal abates as a whole

The respondents specifically pleaded that they had filed their Section 28-A application within the prescribed period and that the application was subsequently lost in the authority’s office. The State’s response did not deny that allegation; the Court therefore treated the timely filing as admitted and held that the State could not rely on its own office’s loss or inaction to establish limitation

The competent authority had also neither rejected the claim as time-barred nor determined it under Section 28-A; it had instead referred the matter under Section 18, leaving no basis for the State to raise the limitation objection at the appellate stage

Separately, because the appeal had abated against two respondents and the award was non-severable, the Court held that the appeal had abated in its entirety

It further held that the appeal had abated in its entirety because the common award was non-severable

The First Appeal was dismissed, and any pending interlocutory application was disposed of