Additional compensation of 12% must be calculated on the total market value of the land, which includes the statutory multiplication factor. Interpretations fragmenting this value to exclude the multiplication factor from the calculation base defeat the legislative intent of mitigating inflationary impact.

ORDER :

SUNITA AGARWAL, J.

1. The petitioners herein are aggrieved by non-award of benefit of Section 30 sub-section (3) of the the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (for short, the Act’ 2013”), on the market value computed by application of the multiplication factor 2, which was granted vide award dated 30.05.2020.

2. At the outset, it is pointed out by Mr. Maulik G. Nanavati, learned advocate for the respondent NHAI that the petitioner no.4 is not named in the original award.

3. On this submission, Mr. Vedant Rajguru, learned advocate holding brief of Mr.A. J. Yagnik, learned advocate for the petitioners would submit that permission be granted to delete petitioner no.4 from the array of parties to enable him to file a fresh petition.

4. The request made is hereby accepted. The petitioner no.4 be deleted from the array of parties. Correction/incorporation shall be carried out during the course of the day.

5. For the remaining petitioners no.1 to 3, it is pointed out by Mr. Maulik G. Nanavati that apart from petitioners 2 and 3 there are co-owners of the land in question, who are not impleaded herein and petitioner no.1 is the sole owner of a different piece of land.

6. The contention is that the award dated 30.05.2020 with respect to the lands in question though determined market value by application of multiplication market value under Section 26(2) of the Act’ 2013 and other statutory benefits, but while granting benefits of additional compensation @12% under Section 30(3) of the Act’ 2013, the market value computed under Section 26(1) has only been taken into consideration, terming the same as the base market value.

7. The issue pertaining to the grant of benefit of additional compensation @ 12% on multiplication factor 2, i.e. the market value computed under Section 26(2) of the Act’ 2013 has been set at rest with the decision of this Court in Special Civil Application No.7561 of 2023 and other cognate matters decided on 23.12.2025.

8. Taking note of the said decision dated 23.12.2025, in a latter judgment and order dated 26.02.2026 in a bunch of writ petition leading being Special Civil Application No.2324 of 2026, the following order was passed:-

“ Heard Mr. A.J.Yagnik, the learned advocate for the petitioners, Ms. Maithili Mehta, the learned AGP appearing for the State respondent No.1, Mr. Maulik G. Nanavati, the learned advocate for the respondent No.2 and Mr. Ankit Shah, the learned advocate for the respondent No.3, in all the petitions.

2. In the present set of writ petitions, the petitioners are seeking for the benefits of statutory benefits of additional compensation @ 12% on the market value of the land provided under Section 30(3) of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (in short as ‘the 2013 Act’) for the period commending from the date of the preliminary notification published under Section 3A of the National Highways Act, 1956, till the date of the award or the date of taking possession of the land, whichever is earlier, as per the scheme of the said provision.

3. The petitioners would submit that though while making determination of the market value in accordance with Section 26 of the 2013 Act, multiplication Factor-2 was applied with respect to the