The Supreme Court will hear NHAI’s review plea challenging the retrospective application of its 2019 land compensation verdict that could cost Rs 32,000 crore. The Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan has listed the case for open court hearing on November 11, 2025.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear in open court the National Highways Authority of India’s (NHAI) review plea against its earlier decision that applied the 2019 land compensation judgment retrospectively.
A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan issued a notice on the review petition and listed the matter for hearing on November 11, 2025, at 3 PM.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for NHAI, told the court that the case has “far-reaching financial implications” amounting to around Rs 32,000 crore, and not Rs 100 crore as was initially believed.
The Bench observed,
“Issue notice, returnable on November 11, 2025, at 3 PM.”
Earlier, on February 4, the Supreme Court had dismissed a similar plea by NHAI and held that its 2019 judgment in the Tarsem Singh case, which granted landowners compensation and interest for land acquired under the National Highways Act, would apply retrospectively.
NHAI had argued that the 2019 ruling should apply only to future cases since retrospective application would reopen already-settled compensation cases under the NHAI Act.
However, the Apex Court rejected this argument, upholding the Tarsem Singh (2019) precedent. It reaffirmed that denying solatium and interest to landowners under Section 3J of the NHAI Act violated Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law.
The court reasoned that making the 2019 judgment prospective
“would defeat its very objective of ensuring parity and fairness to affected landowners.”
While addressing the key issue of whether the judgment should operate prospectively or retrospectively, the Bench observed,
“When a provision is declared unconstitutional, any continued disparity strikes at the core of Article 14 of the Constitution and must be rectified, particularly when such disparity affects only a select group.”
The court further recalled that in the Tarsem Singh judgment, it had carefully examined all relevant facts, laws, and precedents before concluding that Section 3J of the NHAI Act, by excluding the 1894 Land Acquisition Act and thereby denying solatium and interest, was unconstitutional.
This section, the court said, unfairly discriminated against landowners whose properties were acquired for highway projects.
The NHAI’s current review petition seeks a clarification that the Tarsem Singh decision should be applied prospectively, not retrospectively. However, the Bench, referring to its earlier observations, noted,
“However, in our considered view, granting such a clarification would effectively nullify the very relief that Tarsem Singh intended to provide, as the prospective operation of it would restore the state of affairs to the same position as it was before the decision was rendered.”
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The matter will now come up for hearing on November 11, when the Supreme Court will take up NHAI’s plea in an open court session.
The case is being closely watched due to its potential impact on compensation claims worth thousands of crores and its implications for future land acquisition disputes under the National Highways Act.
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