Section 28A Land Acquisition Limitation: Later Appeal Following an Earlier Compensation Enhancement Gives No Fresh Three-Month Period, Holds Supreme Court

Case Name: New Okhla Industrial Development Authority & Anr. v. Rajveer Singh & Ors.

Date of Judgment: 21 September 2026

Citation: Civil Appeal arising out of SLP (C) No. 18801 of 2025.

Bench: Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice K. Vinod Chandran.

Held: Section 28A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 ordinarily permits a landowner who did not seek a Section 18 reference to apply for redetermination within three months of an enhanced award by the Reference Court. The Court considered the limited situation recognised in Banwari: where the Reference Court rejects the reference without any enhancement, the first enhancement in appeal can give rise to an application. Even in that situation, a later appellate order that merely follows an earlier order granting enhancement does not start a fresh three-month period. Time runs from the first enhancement, not from the applicant’s knowledge of it.

Summary: The respondents’ predecessors accepted compensation for land acquired under the same notification as other landowners’ land, but did not seek a Section 18 reference. The other landowners’ reference was rejected. On 8 July 2019, the High Court enhanced compensation in a first appeal concerning land in the same village. A later first appeal was disposed of on 18 April 2022 by following that earlier order. The respondents applied under Section 28A on 23 May 2022, treating the later appellate order as the starting point for limitation. The Supreme Court held that the later order granted no independent enhancement and could not revive an application whose three-month period had expired on 7 October 2019. It distinguished successive Reference Court awards, considered in Pradeep Kumari, from successive appellate orders following the same enhancement.

Decision: The Supreme Court allowed NOIDA’s appeal, set aside the order directing consideration of the respondents’ Section 28A application, and rejected that application as time-barred.