The Allahabad High Court has held that the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Authority (LARRA) constituted under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 has no power, authority or jurisdiction to execute its own award.

It held that no such power has been conferred by the Act, that no rules conferring it have been framed by the State in exercise of its rule making power, and that a power of execution which the statute does not provide cannot be supplied by judicial interpretation.

Section 51 of the Act of 2013 empowers the appropriate Government to establish, by notification, one or more Authorities for speedy disposal of disputes relating to land acquisition, compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement. Under Section 64, a person interested who has not accepted the award of the Collector may require that the matter be referred to the Authority. Section 70(2) provides that every award made by the Authority shall be deemed to be a decree, and the statement of its grounds a judgment, within the meaning of Section 2(2) and Section 2(9) of the Code of Civil Procedure.

Section 60(1) confers on LARRA the powers of a civil court in six enumerated matters — summoning and examining witnesses, discovery and production of documents, evidence on affidavit, requisitioning public records, issuing commissions, and reviewing its own orders — followed by a residuary clause covering any other matter which may be prescribed, for which the appropriate Government may frame rules under Section 109(2)(q). Section 60(3) provides that the Authority shall not be bound by the procedure laid down in the CPC but shall be guided by the principles of natural justice, and shall have the power to regulate its own procedure.

Justice Jaspreet Singh held,

“After having made a threadbare analysis of the statutory provisions and comprehensive discussions as noted above, it unveils that the power of execution has not been conferred nor any Rules for it have been framed under the Rule making power, hence, the power of execution cannot be read into a statute and so also for LARRA.”

The batch comprised 45 petitions under Article 227 of the Constitution. Thirty-three were filed by the 4th Battalion of the Sashastra Seema Bal, a Central Armed Police Force under the Ministry of Home Affairs, eight by the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority, one by the Lucknow Development Authority, and three by land owners seeking expedition of their execution cases pending before LARRA.

In the SSB matters, land measuring 14.988 hectares in Villages Bendowa and Jagroli, Tehsil Mohanlalganj, Lucknow was acquired for a Frontier Headquarters and a Reserved Battalion. The Additional District Magistrate made an award on 07.09.2015 for Rs.38,89,90,526/-. Thirty-eight references were filed seeking enhancement, one of which was allowed by LARRA on 12.01.2024. LARRA enhanced the market value and also awarded an additional amount at 12%, 100% solatium and interest at 9% per annum for one year followed by 15% per annum until payment. SSB's appeal under Section 74 was dismissed on 03.12.2025, its application for condonation of delay having been rejected.

The land owner then instituted an execution case before LARRA itself. In those proceedings LARRA directed the awarded sum to be recovered as arrears of land revenue, issued notice to officials of SSB to show cause why they should not be subjected to civil imprisonment, and directed them to furnish bank account details for attachment. SSB pleaded that financial sanction for the balance was awaiting clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The UPEIDA petitions arose from acquisition in Village Shivlar for the Purvanchal Expressway, where the Collector's award of 05.03.2020 for Rs.1,40,42,530/- was enhanced on 04.04.2024 and LARRA in execution required UPEIDA to deposit the amount and disclose its bank accounts. In the solitary LDA petition, LARRA enhanced the market value of land in Village Bargawan from Rs.3,937.37 to Rs.10,000/- per square metre and on 19.12.2025 rejected LDA's objection that the execution case lay beyond its jurisdiction.

The land owners contended that the Act is a code in itself and that LARRA, having replaced the civil court which decided references under the old Act, must be taken to possess the power to execute. The Court recorded that the Additional Advocate General for the State offered one page of written instructions asserting that LARRA had the power to execute, without explaining how that power could be found in the absence of an express provision.

Comparing the two statutes, the Court observed that under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 a reference lay to a 'Court' defined in Section 3(d) as the principal civil court of original jurisdiction, and Section 53 made the provisions of the CPC applicable to all proceedings before it. It held that that court therefore had both the power to adjudicate and the power to execute its own award, and no separate provision for execution was required. Under the Act of 2013 the reference lies to an Authority which is not a court, and only those provisions of the CPC listed in Section 60(1) have been borrowed, held the Court.

The Court characterised the two as different forms of referential legislation: the old Act attracting the CPC by reference, so that amendments to the Code applied of their own force, while Section 60 incorporates only the specified provisions, which stand as they were when the Act of 2013 was promulgated. Since the provisions governing execution were not among those incorporated, it held that the power of execution could not be inferred.

Rejecting the submission that the power could be traced to Section 60(3) or to inherent powers, the Court held that inherent powers inhere in a court in its classic sense and must be specifically conferred on a statutory authority exercising judicial or quasi judicial functions. It noted that the legislature had expressly conferred the power of review by Section 60(1)(f) but had conferred no inherent powers, which indicated a conscious choice. A provision empowering an authority to regulate its own procedure, the Court held, can regulate only such powers as the substantive Act has conferred.

“As seen from the legislative scheme, the powers of execution and the inherent powers have not been specifically conferred. Thus, such powers cannot be assumed, by digging out from the regulatory provision, nor the provision or power of Section 60(3) can be interpreted or be used to work it as a Trojan horse, to secretly galvanize power of execution for LARRA.”

Holding that adjudication and execution are two separate substantive powers, the Court observed that it is the legislature which enacts the law and the courts which interpret it, and that to interpret the power of a court or tribunal there must be some genesis from which the power emanates.

“Giving a liberal interpretation to a provision can be understood, if there is a source of power. Liberal construction or a strict construction is applicable only if a provision is present. In absence of the provision, there cannot be any liberal or strict construction of any provision so as to create a source of power by judicial interpretation.”

On the argument built upon the deemed decree, the Court held that a legal fiction must be carried to its logical end but does not by itself confer procedural or substantive powers on a tribunal or authority which lacks them. Had the legislature intended the award to be executable by the Authority itself, nothing prevented it from conferring that power expressly.

Surveying the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, the U.P. Cooperative Societies Act, 1965, the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, the U.P. State Universities Act, 1973 and the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, the Court found that in each of them the power of enforcement had been provided for in terms.

“Thus, after visiting the various Acts and considering the provisions, as noted above, it would be clear that wherever the Legislature intended to confer the power of execution with the Authority/Court/Tribunal, it has made specific provisions in this regard.”

The Court also rejected reliance on a State notification dated 04.08.2022, holding that it enabled the judicial officer performing functions under the Act of 2013 to execute awards made under the Act of 1894 and conferred no power to execute an award under the Act of 2013. Since it had been issued under Section 3(d) of the Act of 1894, which stood repealed on 01.01.2014 by Section 114 of the Act of 2013, the Court described its issuance eight years later as debatable, but refrained from saying more as its validity was not under challenge.

Noting that its conclusion would affect execution cases pending before LARRA across Uttar Pradesh, the Court suggested that it would augur well for the State to exercise its rule making power and confer the power of execution on the Authority itself, so as to spare award holders the need to move from one forum to another and avoid adding execution petitions to the burden of the district courts.

Accordingly, the petitions filed by SSB, UPEIDA and LDA were allowed. The orders passed by LARRA in exercise of executory powers were set aside, LARRA was directed to desist from executing its awards, and all such proceedings were held to be without jurisdiction. The three petitions filed by land owners seeking expedition of their execution proceedings were held not to survive and were disposed of accordingly.