just compensation

When the State acquires private property for a public purpose, the owner is entitled to compensation that is fair, not illusory. In India the right to property is no longer a fundamental right since the 44th Amendment (1978); it is a constitutional right under Article 300A, which says no person shall be deprived of property save by authority of law. The Supreme Court has held that a law depriving a person of property must be just, fair and reasonable, and that the requirement of compensation is implicit, though its amount is for the legislature.

For land acquisition, the 2013 Act fixes compensation by market value, a multiplier for rural land, the value of structures and trees, and a solatium of 100 per cent, together with rehabilitation and resettlement benefits.

Example

The landowners argued that a token sum was not just compensation and offended Article 300A.

In Indian law

• Article 300A, Constitution of India
• Sections 26 to 30, Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013
• K.T. Plantation Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Karnataka, 2011 INSC 554: scope of Article 300A and compensation

See also

land acquisition · eminent domain · immovable property

Read more in the study notes

• The Inter-American system: Commission and Court (Human Rights Law and Practice)
• Rights of minorities: Articles 29 and 30 (Indian Constitutional Law - New Challenges)
• Motor insurance: compulsory third-party cover and Claims Tribunals (Insurance Law)
• The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 1886 (Intellectual Property Rights II)
• Concept of Property and Its Evolution (IPR II)
• Land acquisition under the 2013 Act: application, public purpose, social impact assessment and food security (Land Law)