The Land Acquisition Act, 1894 and the RFCTLARR Act, 2013: The Complete Comparison

Part L opens with the subject's master comparison: the colonial statute and its replacement, set side by side across purpose, process, price and protection. The series has met every row of this table in its own topic; here they stand together, the one-stop answer to the examination's most reliable question and the cleanest way to see what 2013 actually changed.

1. The Comparison

Element	Land Acquisition Act, 1894	RFCTLARR Act, 2013
Philosophy	Eminent domain as administration: take, pay, move on	Acquisition as a social transaction: study, consent, compensate, rebuild
Public purpose	Inclusive, elastic; company acquisitions through Part VII	Enumerated in Section 2(1); private hospitals, schools and hotels excluded
Consent	None, for anything	80% of affected families for private projects, 70% for PPP, with Gram Sabha consent in all Scheduled Area acquisitions
Social scrutiny	None	SIA with public hearing, independent Expert Group, Section 8 examination
Food security	Nothing	Multi-crop land a demonstrable last resort within ceilings; net-sown-area caps; linear projects excepted
Hearing	Section 5A objections (30 days), extinguishable by urgency	SIA hearing plus Section 15 objections (60 days, three grounds), urgency confined
Compensation	Market value plus 30% solatium plus 12% additional amount	Highest-of-three market value, times the rural multiplier, plus assets, plus 100% solatium and the 12% amount: about twice urban, four times rural
Rehabilitation	No statutory right	R&R award per affected family; Second and Third Schedule entitlements; possession gated on payment
Protected class	Persons interested: title-holders and claimants	Six-limb affected family: the landless, forest dwellers and urban livelihood losers included
Urgency	Section 17: any "urgent" project, hearing extinguished	Section 40: defence, calamity, or Parliament-approved emergency; 80% tender, 75% premium, minimum area
Clocks and lapse	Section 11A (award in two years) only	Twelve-month beats (Sections 14, 19, 25), Section 24 transition lapse, Section 101 five-year return
Post-acquisition discipline	None: acquire and forget	No change of purpose or ownership (Sections 99 and 100); return if unutilised (101); 40% appreciation sharing (102)
Disputes	Reference to the civil court (Section 18)	LARR Authority with R&R jurisdiction; High Court appeal; civil court barred
Tax on the award	Taxable save exemptions	Section 96: no income tax or stamp duty (Section 46 excepted)
Tribal protection	Nothing special	Sections 41 and 42: last resort, Gram Sabha consent, development plans, identity-preserving resettlement

2. Reading the Table

The continuities matter too: eminent domain itself, the notification-declaration-award skeleton, the valuation date at notification, the offer-character of the award, the colourability review, all survive from 1894, which is why the old case law keeps working inside the new Act.
The deepest single change is the class: the move from persons interested to the affected family redistributes the statute's protection from title to loss, everything else, consent denominators, R&R, the census, flows from it.
The money change is structural, not just bigger: 1894 compensated a parcel; 2013 prices the parcel (doubled), the pendency (12%), the compulsion (solatium), the delay (interest) and the life (R&R), five injuries, five instruments.
The qualification the series has earned: the table describes the Act as enacted; the State amendments trim the process rows (SIA, consent, food security) for favoured categories in the amending States, while the money rows stand everywhere, the 2013 settlement's durable core.

⚠ Key point

1894 to 2013 in five movements: purpose enumerated where it was elastic; consent and social scrutiny where there were none; compensation rebuilt from market-plus-30% to the multiplied, asset-inclusive, 100%-solatium package; rehabilitation created as a statutory right of the six-limb affected family, gating possession itself; and the afterlife disciplined, purpose, ownership, utilisation and profit, with a specialist Authority replacing the civil court. The skeleton and the valuation doctrine survive; the class, the price and the promise changed.

3. Related Topics and Provisions

Defects of the 1894 Act (Topic 3): the left column's indictment
The compensation code (Part D): the right column's engine room
Section 24 (Topics 85 and 86): where the two statutes meet
State amendments (Topic 96): the table's standing qualification