Supreme Court of India
Amid the debate over a three-judge bench overruling another three-judge bench, a five-judge Constitution Bench of Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to “consider” the “correctness of the decision rendered by the two benches regarding applicability of a 2013 law on land acquisition”.
Justice A K Sikri, who was part of the Constitution Bench, observed that one of the benches holding the other’s decision as per incurium appeared “prima-facie” to be “wrong”. “We think it appropriate to state (that) this Bench shall consider all aspects, including the correctness of the decision rendered in Pune Municipal Corporation… and the other judgments following the said decision as well as the judgment rendered in Indore Development Autho-rity,” the bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra held.
The Constitution Bench also comprises Justices M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan. The bench said it would have “proceeded for hearing of these matters” but is postponing that since it is “in the midst of hearing of another Constitution Bench matter.”
The bench is currently hearing a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, and has a few other matters listed before it. The court said it will hear the land acquisition issue after some of these pending matters are heard.
The debate arose after a three-judge bench of Justices Arun Mishra, A K Goel and Mohan M Shantanagoudar on February 8 overruled a 2014 verdict of another three-judge bench of then Chief Justice R M Lodha and Justices Kurian Joseph and M B Lokur in a matter pertaining to Pune Municipal Corporation. The February 8 case concerned the Indore Municipal Corporation.
Both verdicts dealt with the issue of interpretation of Section 24 of Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
The February 8 decision held that compensation not availed within a stipulated five-year period will not be grounds for cancellation of land acquisition. This was contrary to the 2014 decision that depositing the compensation amount in the treasury would not constitute payment and would be ground to cancel the land acquisition. Though all three judges were unanimous in overruling the 2014 decision, the bench gave a 2:1 verdict in holding the Pune Municipal Corporation as “per incuriam” (passed without due regard to law).
This subsequently came up before another three-judge bench of Justice M B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and Deepak Gupta on February 21 while it was dealing with another land acquisition matter. The bench said it will decide whether the matter should be referred to a larger bench for resolution and said it raises questions of “judicial discipline, judicial propriety and consistency.”
The Justice Lokur-led bench also virtually stayed the operation of the February 8 order.
A day after the virtual stay order, the two other SC benches headed by Justices Arun Mishra and A K Goel requested the CJI to decide if the matter should be heard by a larger bench. Accordingly, the CJI constituted the present five-judge bench.
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