Fourth Schedule Acquisition Solatium under the 2013 Act: Which Applies?

Two landowners lose land to the same highway. One receives solatium at thirty per cent of market value; the other receives one hundred per cent, plus a multiplier. Neither the size of the holding nor the quality of the land explains the gap. What explains it is a date on the file. Fourth Schedule acquisition solatium under the 2013 Act turns on when the competent authority determined the compensation — and after a Supreme Court decision of September 2026, that is now the only date that matters.

Why Fourth Schedule Acquisition Solatium is Governed by a Separate Regime

The 2013 Act was intended to replace a century-old acquisition law with a single, generous and procedurally exacting code. But Parliament did not sweep every acquisition statute into it. Section 105(1) provides that the Act does not apply to the enactments listed in the Fourth Schedule, subject to sub-section (3). Those thirteen statutes — the National Highways Act 1956 among them, along with the Railways Act 1989, the Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines Act 1962, the Electricity Act 2003, the Atomic Energy Act 1962 and eight others — kept their own acquisition machinery: their own notifications, their own valuation criteria, their own dispute-resolution route.

What they did not keep was a free hand on compensation. Section 105(3) as originally enacted obliged the Central Government to issue, within one year of commencement, a notification applying the 2013 Act’s compensation and rehabilitation schedules to those enactments. That one-year window closed on 31 December 2014 without any notification being issued.

What followed was an ordinance chain. The Ordinance of 31 December 2014 substituted Section 105(3) of the RFCTLARR Act, providing for the application of the 2013 Act’s compensation provisions under the First Schedule, rehabilitation and resettlement provisions under the Second Schedule, and infrastructure amenities under the Third Schedule to the Fourth Schedule enactments, with effect from 1 January 2015. The same amendment omitted section 105(4), which had required a draft to be laid before both Houses for thirty days with power to disapprove or modify. The ordinance was re-promulgated on 3 April 2015 and again on 30 May 2015, and lapsed on 31 August 2015.

The day before it lapsed — 28 August 2015 — the Ministry of Rural Development made the RFCTLARR (Removal of Difficulties) Order 2015. It was issued not under section 105(3) but under section 113(1), the removal-of-difficulties power, and by clause 1(2) it came into force with effect from 1 September 2015. Clause 2 extends the First, Second and Third Schedules — and only those — to all cases of land acquisition under the Fourth Schedule enactments.

The Two Dates, and Why the Courts Work with 1 January 2015

The practitioner reading that sequence will notice the obvious difficulty. The statutory amendment speaks from 1 January 2015; the subordinate Order speaks from 1 September 2015; and the amendment that supplied the earlier date lapsed. Which date governs an acquisition determined in, say, March 2015?

The Supreme Court has consistently worked with 1 January 2015. In Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, (2019) 9 SCC 304, decided 19 September 2019, the Court held that section 3J of the NH Act, in so far as it denied solatium and interest to highway land-losers, was violative of Article 14, and that sections 23(1-A), 23(2) and the proviso to section 28 of the 1894 Act applied to NH Act acquisitions. When NHAI later sought to have that ruling applied prospectively only, the Court refused (Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, 2025 INSC 146, 4 February 2025), and its reasoning at that stage used the 1 January 2015 line as the reference point for the change of regime.

None of this is the same as a decision on the vires or the temporal reach of the Order itself. No judgment holding directly on the relationship between the 1 January 2015 statutory date and the 1 September 2015 commencement of the Order was traced in preparing this note. It is an open question, and practitioners with an acquisition determined between those two dates should expect it to be argued.

What Manav Bhanot Decides About the Competent Authority’s Determination Date

In Manav Bhanot v. National Highway Authority of India, 2026 INSC 973, decided 8 September 2026, a bench of J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran JJ. (judgment by Chandran J.) addressed a narrower but far more practical question: which date on a highway acquisition file is the operative one.

The competent authority in that case had determined compensation on 11 July 2014. The arbitrator’s redetermination came later, after 1 January 2015. The landowner argued that the arbitral award was the relevant event and that the 2013 Act’s First Schedule therefore applied.

The Court rejected that. At paragraph 19 it held that the “award” under the NH Act is the determination by the competent authority under section 3G(1); the arbitrator’s determination under section 3G(5) is in the nature of a civil court’s decision on a reference under section 18 of the 1894 Act. Applying the Constitution Bench in Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal, (2020) 8 SCC 129, the Court held at paragraph 23 that where the competent authority determined compensation before 1 January 2015 — even if after 1 January 2014, when the 2013 Act itself commenced — solatium, interest and interest on solatium are payable under the 1894 Act. The appeal was allowed only to that extent, and the matter remitted to the competent authority for computation.

The applicable Fourth Schedule acquisition compensation regime determines whether the landowner receives solatium under the 1894 Act or the enhanced compensation framework of the 2013 Act.

The Cross-Enactment Reach, and One Live Dispute

Because the line is drawn by section 105(3) and by the Order, it is not confined to highways. The same reasoning applies to a Railways Act Chapter IVA determination, to a pipeline right-of-user acquisition, and to the remaining Fourth Schedule statutes.

That breadth has produced its own litigation. In Trivedi Janardan Ghanshyambhai v. Competent Authority, R/Special Civil Application No. 14518 of 2024 with four connected petitions, the Gujarat High Court (Sunita Agarwal C.J. and D.N. Ray J.) heard a challenge to pipeline acquisition awards of 2024 that had excluded both solatium and the twelve per cent additional amount under section 30(3). The judgment, delivered on 25 July 2025, reproduces the Removal of Difficulties Order verbatim. The point pressed by the landowners was a textual one with real force: the Order in terms extends only the First, Second and Third Schedules, and section 30(3) is in the body of the Act, not in a Schedule.

The companion decision in Suthar Mahendrabhai Jethabhai v. Competent Authority, R/Special Civil Application No. 15982 of 2024, decided 31 July 2025 by the same bench, quotes the earlier reasoning at length and treats the twelve per cent additional amount as a substantive statutory right, drawing on K.S. Paripoornan v. State of Kerala, (1994) 5 SCC 593 and R.B. Dealers (P) Ltd. v. Metro Railway, Kolkata, (2019) 20 SCC 658, in which an award was analysed as comprising three parts: compensation, solatium, and the additional amount. More recently, in Digvijaysinh Jashwantsinh Solanki v. Competent Authority, R/Special Civil Application No. 3696 of 2026 with eleven cognate petitions, decided 24 March 2026, the same bench held that the twelve per cent is computable on the market value as multiplied under section 26(2), with interest under section 80 at nine and then fifteen per cent.

Practitioners should know that the first of these decisions is under challenge. A special leave petition, SLP (C) No. 35721 of 2025, together with a group of connected petitions, was pending before the Supreme Court as at May 2026, listed before the Registrar on service compliance. No stay and no order on merits was traced. Anyone relying on the Gujarat line should disclose that the matter is sub judice.

The Other Side of the Argument

Balance requires stating the acquiring body’s case fairly, because it is not frivolous.

First, on the Schedules-only point, the Order is a subordinate instrument made under a removal-of-difficulties power. Such powers are construed narrowly. If the Order extends only three Schedules, a court asked to read section 30(3) into a Fourth Schedule acquisition is being asked to do by construction what the executive did not do by drafting.

Second, on retrospectivity, the Supreme Court’s own directions cut against reopening. In National Highways Authority of India v. Tarsem Singh, 2026 INSC 291, decided 25 March 2026 by Surya Kant C.J.I. and Ujjal Bhuyan J., the Court refused review of the 2019 parity ruling notwithstanding NHAI’s corrected estimate of the fiscal exposure, but laid down directions keyed to 28 March 2008: claims alive on or after that date may seek the addition of solatium and interest; where the claim was raised after that date, interest runs only from when it was raised, not for the period of delay; concluded claims are not to be reopened; and amounts already paid are not to be recovered.

Third, there is a candid observation to make about the vires argument in general. Were the Order to be successfully challenged, the consequence would not favour landowners. It would strip the First Schedule solatium and the multiplier from every Fourth Schedule acquisition since 2015. That is why the point is raised by acquiring bodies as a defence to incremental heads, and almost never pressed to its conclusion.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Fourth Schedule enactments?

Thirteen central acquisition laws to which the body of the 2013 Act does not apply: the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958; the Atomic Energy Act 1962; the Damodar Valley Corporation Act 1948; the Indian Tramways Act 1886; the Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885; the Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act 1978; the National Highways Act 1956; the Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act 1962; the Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act 1952; the Resettlement of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act 1948; the Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development Act 1957; the Electricity Act 2003; and the Railways Act 1989.

Which date decides whether the 1894 Act or the 2013 Act supplies solatium?

The date of the competent authority’s determination. Under the NH Act, that is the determination under section 3G(1). Before 1 January 2015, the 1894 Act rates; on or after it, the First Schedule to the 2013 Act.

Does the arbitrator’s award date change the answer?

No. The Supreme Court has held that the arbitral determination under section 3G(5) stands in the position of a reference court deciding a section 18 reference, not in the position of the award itself.

Why are there two dates — 1 January 2015 and 1 September 2015?

The first comes from the substituted section 105(3); the second from the Removal of Difficulties Order made under section 113(1) after the ordinance chain lapsed. The courts have worked with 1 January 2015. The relationship between the two has not been separately adjudicated.

Can an already concluded claim be reopened to add solatium?

Generally no. The 2026 review directions permit addition only for claims alive on or after 28 March 2008, restrict interest where the claim was raised late, protect concluded claims from reopening, and bar recovery of sums already paid.

Is the twelve per cent additional amount payable in a Fourth Schedule acquisition?

The Gujarat High Court has held it is, and that it is computable on the multiplied market value. The point is under challenge in the Supreme Court and should be advanced with that disclosure.

Sources

• Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, sections 26, 30, 72, 80, 105 and 113, and the First, Second, Third and Fourth Schedules — India Code.
• RFCTLARR (Amendment) Ordinance 2015 (No. 4 of 2015), section 12, Gazette of India Extraordinary, 3 April 2015, substituting section 105(3) and omitting section 105(4); preceded by Ordinance 9 of 2014 (31 December 2014) and continued by Ordinance 5 of 2015 (30 May 2015).
• RFCTLARR (Removal of Difficulties) Order 2015, S.O. 2368(E), Ministry of Rural Development, dated 28 August 2015, made under section 113(1), in force 1 September 2015.
• Land Acquisition Act 1894, sections 23(1-A), 23(2) and 28.
• Manav Bhanot v. National Highway Authority of India, 2026 INSC 973, decided 8 September 2026 (Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran JJ.).
• Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, (2019) 9 SCC 304, decided 19 September 2019.
• Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, 2025 INSC 146, decided 4 February 2025 (prospective operation refused).
• National Highways Authority of India v. Tarsem Singh, 2026 INSC 291, decided 25 March 2026 (review; directions keyed to 28 March 2008).
• Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal, (2020) 8 SCC 129 (Constitution Bench).
• Trivedi Janardan Ghanshyambhai v. Competent Authority, Gujarat High Court, R/Special Civil Application No. 14518 of 2024 with connected petitions, decided 25 July 2025; and Suthar Mahendrabhai Jethabhai v. Competent Authority, R/Special Civil Application No. 15982 of 2024, decided 31 July 2025. Special leave petition against the former pending: SLP (C) No. 35721 of 2025 and connected petitions.
• Digvijaysinh Jashwantsinh Solanki v. Competent Authority, Gujarat High Court, R/Special Civil Application No. 3696 of 2026 with connected petitions, decided 24 March 2026.
• K.S. Paripoornan v. State of Kerala, (1994) 5 SCC 593; R.B. Dealers (P) Ltd. v. Metro Railway, Kolkata, (2019) 20 SCC 658.