Court-stayed acquisition proceedings must be excluded from the award deadline, regardless of who obtained the stay.

Under the Explanation to section 11A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, the period during which proceedings pursuant to a section 6 declaration are stayed by a court must be excluded from the two-year time limit for making the award. The exclusion is not confined to stays obtained by the landholder; it applies whenever a court order prevents completion of the acquisition proceedings. The provision is intended to stop delay by the acquisition authority, and that object is not defeated because the stay was granted at the instance of another party. On that basis, the acquisition proceedings were treated as not having lapsed.

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Issues: Whether the period during which proceedings pursuant to a declaration under section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 were stayed by an order of court at the instance of a party other than the landholder had to be excluded while computing the two-year period under section 11A, and whether the acquisition proceedings had therefore lapsed.

Analysis: Section 11A requires the Collector to make the award within two years from publication of the declaration, but its Explanation mandates exclusion of the period during which any action or proceeding pursuant to the declaration is stayed by a court. The wording of the Explanation is broad and does not confine the exclusion to cases where the stay is obtained by the landholder. The object of the provision is to prevent delay by the acquisition authority, and that object is not defeated where a court order, obtained by another party, prevents completion of the proceedings. The reliance placed on the earlier Supreme Court observation was rejected as that observation was made in the context of the facts of that case and did not lay down a restriction limiting the Explanation only to stays obtained by the landholder.

Conclusion: The Explanation to section 11A applied and the period of stay had to be excluded. The acquisition proceedings had not lapsed, and the challenge to the dismissal of the writ petition failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Under the Explanation to section 11A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, any period during which proceedings pursuant to the declaration are stayed by a court must be excluded, irrespective of who obtained the stay.

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