Niraj Jain v. Competent Authority‑ cum‑ Additional Collector, Jagdalpur 2026 INSC 86 - Land Acquisition
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Land Acquisition - Whether the setting aside of compensation awards for a few landowners, found to have colluded with officials and received excessive amounts in a Chhattisgarh special rail project acquisition, automatically invalidates the entire land acquisition award, including in favour of non‑tainted landowner ? SC held: The earlier High Court judgment and subsequent administrative orders, which annulled both the original and arbitral awards across the board, could operate only against the specifically implicated landowners and could not affect the appellant, who was neither accused of wrongdoing nor made a party to those proceedings - Restored the original award dated 12.02.2018 and the arbitral enhancement dated 28.06.2019 in favour of the appellant, and directs disbursement of the entire balance compensation with applicable interest and solatium within three months.
Case Info
Case name and neutral citation
Case name: Niraj Jain v. Competent Authority‑cum‑Additional Collector, Jagdalpur & Ors.Neutral citation: 2026 INSC 86
Coram
Bench: Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K. Vinod Chandran(Judgment authored by K. Vinod Chandran, J.)
Judgment date
Date of judgment: 27 January 2026 (New Delhi)
Statutes / laws referred
The judgment refers to and applies:
- Railways Act, 1989
- Specifically Section 20‑F(6) (arbitration on compensation under Special Railway Projects)
- Land Acquisition (Special Railway Projects) Rules, 2016
- Guidelines/circulars for market price for the year 2017‑18 (administrative price‑fixation guidelines relevant to compensation)
- Criminal law provisions via reference to FIRs (though specific Code sections are not named)
