The land acquisition law has one of its legs stuck in the Supreme Court

The court has to decide whether private companies, under some circumstances, can continue to enjoy the advantage the colonial-era land acquisition law gave them over land owners

Under the 1894 vintage Land Acquisition Act, land owners often held back trying to negotiate a better compensation from the government for their forcefully acquired lands. Thousands of such cases landed up in prolonged litigation. So, when the Congress drafted the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act, it brought in a special provision to address these legacy disputes.

Section 24 (2) of the LARR states that after initiating land acquisition for a project under the 1894 law, if the physical possession has not been taken by the developer or the compensation not paid to the land owners for more than