Rehabilitation under the 2013 land acquisition law applies to post-commencement acquisitions; delayed objections and a stay order did not unsettle precedent.

Post-commencement land acquisition under the 2013 Act attracts the Act's rehabilitation and resettlement regime, so affected landowners were entitled to those statutory benefits despite an earlier policy and prior environmental clearance. A social impact assessment was not mandatory on the facts because the project fell within the Act's exception, and objections under Section 15 were time-barred, so no enforceable right to a personal hearing arose. A stay of operation of an earlier Division Bench judgment did not extinguish its ratio or binding force; the declared legal principle remained applicable until set aside by a superior court. The acquisition was therefore not invalidated on those grounds.

---

---

Issues: (i) whether land acquisition proceedings initiated after commencement of the 2013 Act attracted the Act's rehabilitation and resettlement regime instead of the earlier policy; (ii) whether non-conduct of social impact assessment and non-grant of a personal hearing under Section 15 of the 2013 Act vitiated the preliminary notification and declaration; and (iii) whether a stay of operation of the earlier Division Bench judgment deprived it of precedential value.

Issue (i): whether land acquisition proceedings initiated after commencement of the 2013 Act attracted the Act's rehabilitation and resettlement regime instead of the earlier policy.

Analysis: The acquisition was initiated after the 2013 Act came into force. The statutory scheme of the Act governs rehabilitation and resettlement for such post-commencement acquisitions, and the earlier policy could not control the benefits payable merely because the project had an older origin. The prior environmental clearance did not displace the later statutory entitlement to rehabilitation and resettlement benefits under the 2013 Act.

Conclusion: In favour of the appellants. The affected landowners were held entitled to rehabilitation and resettlement benefits under the 2013 Act.

Issue (ii): whether non-conduct of social impact assessment and non-grant of a personal hearing under Section 15 of the 2013 Act vitiated the preliminary notification and declaration.

Analysis: The irrigation project fell within the exception under the Act where environmental impact assessment was required under another law, and social impact assessment was therefore not mandatory if the environmental clearance continued to operate. The objections raised were also filed beyond the sixty-day period prescribed by Section 15(1). Since the objections were time-barred, the entitlement to an oral hearing under Section 15(2) did not arise. The objections did not substantively bring the acquisition within the permitted grounds in Section 15(1), except for a tenuous assertion regarding the remaining land. The failure to conduct social impact assessment and the alleged denial of hearing did not invalidate the acquisition proceedings on the facts.

Conclusion: Against the appellants on invalidation of the acquisition. No vitiation of the notification or declaration was found on these grounds.

Issue (iii): whether a stay of operation of the earlier Division Bench judgment deprived it of precedential value.

Analysis: A stay of operation suspends enforcement of the judgment but does not erase it from existence or nullify the legal principle declared therein. The ratio remains binding on a coordinate Bench unless set aside by a superior court. The earlier Division Bench ruling therefore continued to govern the legal questions considered.

Conclusion: Against the appellants. The earlier judgment remained binding despite the stay.

Final Conclusion: The writ appeal succeeded in part: the acquisition was not set aside, but the matter was remitted for further consideration with directions securing compensation and preserving the petitioners' claims to statutory and consequential reliefs.

Ratio Decidendi: A stay of operation of a judgment does not extinguish the ratio decidendi, and objections to land acquisition under Section 15 of the 2013 Act must be filed within the statutory period and can sustain a hearing claim only when timely objections raising cognisable grounds are made.

---