On September 8, 2026, the Supreme Court settled a question that has been quietly deciding the fate of tens of thousands of highway land-acquisition files across the country: when a landowner’s compensation was fixed years before the law changed, but the fight over that compensation dragged on past the change, which law actually pays out? In Manav Bhanot v. National Highway Authority of India, a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran held that the answer turns on a single date — not when the acquisition began, and not when the dispute was finally resolved, but the date the Competent Authority first determined the compensation. Get that date wrong, and a landowner either receives a windfall they were never entitled to, or is shortchanged out of benefits Parliament and the courts have spent nearly three decades trying to guarantee them.

Background: A Highway Law Built to Shortchange Landowners

Land for national highways is not acquired under the general Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (and its 2013 successor) directly — it is acquired under the special machinery of the National Highways Act, 1956, which lets the Centre notify land under Section 3A, declare the acquisition under Section 3D, and have a Competent Authority — not a civil court — fix the compensation.

For decades, Section 3J of that Act went further: it excluded the 1894 Act’s “solatium” (a statutory top-up over market value, compensating for the compulsory nature of the taking) and the interest payable on delayed compensation altogether. A highway land-owner recovered less than a landowner whose plot was taken for any other public purpose under the general law — for no reason other than which government department happened to be acquiring the land.

The Supreme Court closed that gap in Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, (2019) 9 SCC 304, decided on September 19, 2019. It held Section 3J unconstitutional as an arbitrary and discriminatory classification violating Article 14, and directed that solatium under Section 23(1-A) and (2) and interest under the proviso to Section 28 of the 1894 Act must be paid to highway landowners too — retrospectively, covering acquisitions going back to 1997, when Section 3J was first inserted. When the National Highways Authority of India later tried to have that retrospective sweep narrowed, the Court rejected the attempt and, in 2025, dismissed NHAI’s review petition outright, holding that a mere increase in the government’s projected financial liability was no ground to cut back a landowner’s constitutional entitlement.

Separately, from January 1, 2015, Parliament extended the more generous compensation regime of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (“the 2013 Act”) to acquisitions under the National Highways Act as well. Under the 1894 Act, solatium is capped at 30% of market value; under the 2013 Act, it is 100%, layered on top of a statutory multiplier of two to four times market value depending on whether the land is urban or rural — a materially larger payout for the same acre of land, as comparative analyses of the two regimes have long noted. That created a second question Tarsem Singh never had to answer: for acquisitions straddling that January 2015 line, which regime’s rates apply — not whether solatium and interest are payable at all (that much was settled), but how much of it.

The Case: A Determination in 2014, an Arbitral Award in 2016

Manav Bhanot’s land was acquired for a national highway project through a Section 3A notification issued on June 7, 2011, followed by a Section 3D declaration on January 20, 2012. The Competent Authority fixed his compensation on July 11, 2014 — squarely before the 2013 Act’s compensation regime was extended to NH Act acquisitions. Dissatisfied, he sought arbitration, as the NH Act’s compensation-dispute mechanism requires, and secured an arbitral award on January 13, 2016 — after the cutover date. NHAI challenged that award under Sections 34 and 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, and the dispute ultimately reached the Supreme Court by way of a civil appeal arising out of SLP(C) No. 27541 of 2024.

Bhanot’s argument was straightforward: since his arbitral award — the instrument that actually crystallised his enhanced compensation — was passed in 2016, after the 2013 Act’s regime kicked in for highway acquisitions, he should get the benefit of the 2013 Act’s higher solatium and interest rates, not the more modest 1894 Act figures.

The Holding: The Competent Authority’s Date Controls, Not the Arbitrator’s

The Court disagreed. It held that “if a determination of compensation is made by the Competent Authority under the NH Act before 01.01.2015, solatium, interest and interest on solatium would be payable under the Act of 1894” — regardless of when a subsequent arbitration, reference, or appeal concludes. Since the Competent Authority in this case fixed compensation on July 11, 2014, the 1894 Act’s rates governed, notwithstanding that the arbitral award itself was rendered more than a year after the 2013 Act became applicable to highway acquisitions.

The Bench grounded this in the Constitution Bench’s reasoning in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal, (2020) 8 SCC 129, decided March 6, 2020, which construed the parallel cutover provision in Section 24(1)(a) of the 2013 Act as turning on when an “award” was actually made, not on when acquisition proceedings were first set in motion. Applying the same logic here, the Court explained that Tarsem Singh had settled entitlement — that solatium and interest must be paid to every highway landowner, full stop — but had never addressed quantification, i.e., which statute’s rate table applies once that entitlement is triggered. Reading the two questions together, the Bench held that the Competent Authority’s original determination is the operative “award” for this purpose; a later arbitral award merely reviews or modifies that determination, it does not reset the clock.

The appeal was accordingly allowed only in part: NHAI was directed to pay solatium, interest, and interest on solatium, but computed under the 1894 Act’s provisions rather than the more generous 2013 Act formula, and the matter was remanded to the Competent Authority for that recalculation and disbursal.

Why the Distinction Matters

The stakes here are not academic. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways told Parliament in December 2022 that more than 1.74 lakh land-compensation disputes connected to national highway projects remained pending across states — a backlog built up over decades of acquisition activity, much of it straddling exactly the kind of pre-2015-determination, post-2015-resolution timeline at issue in Manav Bhanot. For every one of those files, this ruling supplies the operative rule: look at the date the Competent Authority — not any court, tribunal, or arbitrator — first fixed the compensation. If that date falls before January 1, 2015, the 1894 Act’s rates apply, however long the dispute over the amount subsequently runs.

For NHAI and the government, the ruling caps a source of open-ended financial exposure: a landowner cannot inflate a decades-old award into a 2013 Act payout simply by keeping the arbitration or appeal alive past the cutover date. For landowners and their counsel, the lesson cuts the other way — it is now the age of the underlying determination, not the age of the litigation, that decides how generously they are ultimately paid, and delay in resolving a dispute buys no upgrade in the rate of compensation.

Conclusion: A Bright Line for a Backlogged System

Manav Bhanot does not disturb the constitutional entitlement to solatium and interest that Tarsem Singh secured for highway landowners; if anything, it reinforces it by giving that entitlement a workable, predictable rule for computation. What it refuses to do is let the length of litigation — often driven by the government’s own delay in paying what is due — become a backdoor route to a better compensation formula. For a highway land-acquisition docket that runs into the hundreds of thousands of pending files, a bright-line, date-of-determination test is likely to save both landowners and the exchequer years of further argument over which statute’s numbers to use, even as the harder question of actually clearing that backlog remains for Parliament and the executive to answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the Supreme Court actually decide in Manav Bhanot v. NHAI?

It held that for land acquired under the National Highways Act, if the Competent Authority determined the compensation before January 1, 2015, the landowner’s solatium, interest, and interest on solatium must be computed under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 — even if a later arbitral award or court order in the same dispute was passed after that date.

Does this mean highway landowners no longer get solatium and interest at all?

No. The entitlement to solatium and interest for National Highways Act acquisitions was permanently settled in Union of India v. Tarsem Singh (2019), which struck down Section 3J of the Act as unconstitutional. Manav Bhanot only decides which statute’s rate table — the 1894 Act’s or the more generous 2013 Act’s — applies to that already-guaranteed entitlement.

Why does the January 1, 2015 date matter?

That is the date from which Parliament extended the compensation provisions of the 2013 Act to acquisitions under the National Highways Act. Acquisitions where compensation was determined before that date fall under the older, less generous 1894 Act formula; those determined on or after it fall under the 2013 Act.

What if my compensation was first determined years ago but the case is still in arbitration or court?

Under this ruling, the relevant date is when the Competent Authority originally determined your compensation, not when the arbitration, appeal, or court proceeding concludes. A pending dispute does not shift you into the more favourable 2013 Act regime if your original determination predates January 1, 2015.

How much difference does it make financially — 1894 Act versus 2013 Act rates?

The 1894 Act caps solatium at 30% of market value. The 2013 Act provides a 100% solatium on top of a statutory multiplier of two to four times market value (depending on whether the land is urban or rural), making it substantially more generous for the same land.

Does this ruling affect land acquired for purposes other than national highways?

Not directly. It specifically construes the cutover between the 1894 Act and the 2013 Act as applied to acquisitions under the National Highways Act, 1956, and draws on the Constitution Bench’s separate reasoning in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal about the general 2013 Act cutover under Section 24(1)(a). The underlying date-of-award principle, however, mirrors that broader constitutional interpretation.

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