Compulsory acquisition compensation cannot deny solatium and interest where unequal treatment under land acquisition law offends Article 14.

Section 3J of the National Highways Act, 1956 was analysed as excluding solatium and interest from compulsory acquisition compensation, creating unequal treatment between similarly situated landowners and offending Article 14. The ruling held that restoring these compensatory benefits does not reopen the acquisition or disturb final compensation proceedings, because the benefits are integral to expropriatory acquisition. A request to confine the judgment to prospective operation was rejected, since that would preserve the discriminatory classification and narrow relief already declared. The affected acquisitions therefore remain entitled to solatium and interest in accordance with the earlier directions.

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Issues: Whether the judgment in Tarsem Singh ought to be confined to prospective operation or apply to acquisitions made under the National Highways Act, 1956 between 1997 and 2015, and whether the clarification sought would impermissibly reopen concluded matters.

Analysis: Section 3J of the National Highways Act, 1956 excluded the benefits of solatium and interest otherwise available under the land acquisition regime, creating an unequal class of landowners whose lands were acquired by the National Highways Authority of India before the 2013 Act was brought into force for such acquisitions. The refusal to extend those benefits to similarly situated landowners would produce an artificial classification lacking intelligible differentia and would offend Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The grant of solatium and interest does not require reopening the acquisition itself or disturbing the finality of the compensation proceedings; it merely restores compensatory benefits that are integral to expropriatory acquisition. A request to limit the ruling prospectively would therefore dilute the relief already declared and would amount to an indirect attempt to nullify a settled adjudication.

Conclusion: The clarification sought on prospectivity was rejected, and the ruling was affirmed as applicable to the relevant acquisitions, with solatium and interest payable in accordance with the earlier directions.

Final Conclusion: The challenge to the reach of the earlier judgment failed, and the connected matters were disposed of by directing calculation and payment of the compensatory benefits, while the separate challenge to additional market value was not accepted.

Ratio Decidendi: When a provision that denied compensatory benefits in compulsory acquisition is declared unconstitutional, the decision must operate to remove the unequal treatment for the affected class and cannot be confined so narrowly as to perpetuate discrimination among similarly situated landowners.

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