Section 11A of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894: Period Within Which an Award Had to Be Made

Section 11A imposed a statutory time limit on the Collector for making an award under Section 11. Ordinarily, the award had to be made within two years from publication of the declaration. If no award was made within that period, the entire acquisition proceedings lapsed, subject to the proviso and exclusion of court-stay periods contained in Section 11A.

Historical law note: This article explains the Central statutory position immediately before the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 came into force on 1 January 2014. The 2013 Act repealed the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 through Section 114, subject to its saving and transitional framework. State amendments or adaptations may require separate examination.

Section 11A at a glance

The Collector had to make the Section 11 award within two years from publication of the declaration.
If no award was made within that statutory period, the entire acquisition proceedings lapsed.
For a declaration published before commencement of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984, the two-year period ran from commencement of that Amendment Act.
Time during which action or proceedings pursuant to the declaration were stayed by a court order was excluded from computation of the two-year period.

Bare Act text of Section 11A

Section 11A - Period within which an award shall be made

The Collector shall make an award under section 11 within a period of two years from the date of the publication of the declaration and if no award is made within that period, the entire proceedings for the acquisition of the land shall lapse:

Provided that in a case where the said declaration has been published before the commencement of the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984, (68 of 1984), the award shall be made within a period of two years from such commencement.

Explanation: In computing the period of two years referred to in this section, the period during which any action or proceeding to be taken in pursuance of the said declaration is stayed by an order of a Court shall be excluded.

Two-year time limit for making the award

The principal rule in Section 11A required the Collector to make the award under Section 11 within two years from the date of publication of the declaration. The declaration referred to is the declaration under Section 6.

Consequence of delay: Section 11A did not merely prescribe an administrative target. Its text expressly provided that if no award was made within the applicable two-year period, the entire proceedings for acquisition of the land would lapse.

Special rule for declarations published before the 1984 Amendment

Section 11A was inserted by the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984. Its proviso addressed acquisitions in which the declaration had already been published before commencement of that Amendment Act. In those cases, the award was required to be made within two years from the commencement of the 1984 Amendment Act, rather than by mechanically calculating two years from the earlier declaration date.

Exclusion of time when proceedings were stayed by a court

The Explanation to Section 11A required exclusion of the period during which any action or proceeding to be taken in pursuance of the declaration was stayed by an order of a court. That excluded period therefore did not count toward the statutory two-year limit.

Computation principle: Identify the applicable starting point, determine the two-year period, and then exclude the period during which the relevant action or proceeding pursuant to the declaration was stayed by a court order.

Meaning of important expressions

Award under Section 11

The Section 11 award followed the Collector's statutory inquiry and dealt with matters including the true area of the land, compensation and apportionment among persons believed to be interested.

Declaration

For Section 11A, the relevant declaration was the declaration under Section 6 that the land was needed for a public purpose or for a Company under the statutory framework then applicable. Section 6 also prescribed publication requirements and treated the last of the specified publication/public-notice dates as the date of publication of the declaration.

Lapse

In the context of Section 11A, "lapse" followed directly from the statutory command: where no award was made within the applicable period, the entire proceedings for acquisition of the land lapsed.

How Section 11A fitted into the acquisition process

After the Section 6 declaration, the Collector proceeded through the acquisition stages, including marking and measurement under Section 8, notice to interested persons under Section 9, information-gathering under Section 10, and the inquiry and award under Section 11. Section 11A placed the statutory outer time limit on making that award.

Current legal status

The Land Acquisition Act, 1894 is no longer the general Central statute governing new acquisitions. The 2013 Act came into force on 1 January 2014 and repealed the 1894 Act through Section 114, subject to the saving and transitional provisions applicable to older acquisition proceedings. The legal effect on a particular older acquisition depends on its dates, procedural stage, applicable transitional provisions and any relevant State amendments.

Editorial note: This page states the Central Section 11A position immediately before commencement of the 2013 Act. The bare statutory text above is retained from the source page and checked against the official Central text.