Examine how far the RFCTLARR Act, 2013 has corrected the shortcomings of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, especially for old, uncompensated acquisitions.

The colonial Land Acquisition Act, 1894 let the state take land for a loosely defined "public purpose" at low and often delayed compensation. The RFCTLARR Act, 2013, in force from 1 January 2014, replaced it [1]. The new Act has largely fixed the old law's design flaws. However, old acquisitions that were never paid for are being set right mainly by the courts, not by the statute alone.

Shortcomings corrected

• Fair compensation: owners now get market value, a multiplier for rural land and 100% solatium, instead of the low valuations of the 1894 regime [1].
• Consent and Social Impact Assessment (SIA) for private and PPP projects bring in public participation, which the 1894 Act lacked [1].
• Rehabilitation and resettlement is now a legal right, and it covers people who lose their livelihood, not only owners [1].
• Section 24 brings pending old cases under the new law: where no award was made, compensation follows the 2013 Act. Indore Development Authority v. Manoharlal (2020) settled when such acquisitions lapse [1].

Old, uncompensated acquisitions: partly corrected

• The Patna HC (2026) applied the 2013 Act to land Bihar took in 1976 for a drain and never paid for. It quashed a Collector's order that had reclassified the land as public Gair-mazarua Aam land while an appeal was still pending [2].
• The Supreme Court has held that the state cannot avoid paying on grounds of delay and laches [3]. It has also read a duty to compensate into Art. 300A and called property a human right [4].
• In Vidya Devi (2020), the Supreme Court held that the state cannot take land without paying and then claim it by adverse possession [5].

Gaps that persist

• There is no built-in mechanism to find unpaid acquisitions. Owners must go to court, in the Bihar case for about 50 years [2].
• Revenue officers can still change land records, so the state acts as both debtor and judge [2].
• Weak records: 99.8% of records of rights are computerised, but surveys and re-surveys are pending in many states [6].
• Paying at today's rates raises the state's liability, but that cost comes from its own delay [3].

The 2013 Act has corrected the 1894 law's core flaws in valuation, participation and rehabilitation. Old unpaid acquisitions, however, are still being fixed one case at a time by constitutional courts. States should audit unpaid acquisitions and settle them under the 2013 Act, ban reclassification of land while an appeal is pending, and finish re-surveys under DILRMP [6]. That would make Art. 300A's guarantee, that no one is deprived of property except by authority of law, mean fair and timely compensation.