Three land acquisition cases have brought a constitutional question involving the powers of a SC bench to overturn previous verdicts.
The core contention involves whether a 3 member bench of the Supreme Court can overrule another 3 member bench’s order.
What was the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) case?
“PMC & Ars vs Harakchand Solanki case” was related to proceedings for acquisition of 43.94 acres for the development of a “Forest Garden”.
The landowners challenged the acquisition proceedings before the Bombay High Court, which ruled in their favour.
Subsequently, a 3 member bench of the Supreme Court upheld the High court order, in January 2014.
This was with reference to the “Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013”.
What was Indore Development Authority Case?
High Court ruling - Indore Development Authority (IDA), wanted to acquire land for the construction of a link road on the outskirts of Indore city.
While IDA had deposited the compensation with the Land Acquisition Collector, the landowners simply refused to take it and approached the HC.
Madhya Pradesh High Court ruled that the claimants had not received compensation and the acquisition has hence lapsed.
This ruling was with the citation of the 2014 SC judgement in the PMC case.
The Appeal – Indore Development Authority (IDA) proceeded with an appeal against the Madhya Pradesh HC order to the Supreme Court.
This time, a 3 member bench, overturned the High Court order and unanimously ruled in favour of IDA’s claim.
The Bench observed that once the amount of compensation had been unconditionally tendered, it would imply that payment has been made.
Hence, claimants/landowners who’ve refused compensation can’t approach the court with the view that they’ve not been compensated.
Further, it stated that the previous SC decision in the 2014 PMC case was not correct and that it could be reviewed in future through appropriate cases.
What was the Haryana Land Acquisition case?
Haryana had acquired land belonging to G.D.Goenka Tourism Corporation Ltd and others in 2003.
A case is this is regard was filed in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2016, by those whose land had been acquired.
The High Court found that compensation was never paid to the parties, and held that the land acquisition proceedings were deemed to have lapsed.
Haryana government appealed against this ruling in the Supreme Court, which can to be heard recently (Feb 21st 2018).
The problem - The Bench that is hearing the Haryana government’s appeal, was informed of the Feb 8th IDA Case ruling.
This left the bench wondering on how a three-judge Bench could overturn the 2014 decision, which too, had been delivered by a three-judge Bench.
The bench has hence requested all HCs and other SC benches to defer their proceeding in cases that will be impacted by the Feb 8th order.
This has virtually stayed the operation of the February 8 order until a decision on whether to refer this issue to a larger bench is taken.
The current position is that any subsequent SC bench can overrule a previous SC bench order only when the number of judges in the latter is more.
