Cognizance of Offences and the Prosecution Architecture: Sections 88 to 90

The chapter closes with its procedure: which courts try the Act's offences, how police powers are kept out of them, and, the provision with real democratic content, who may set a prosecution against a Requiring Body in motion, a list that includes any member of the affected family. This note covers the prosecution architecture of Sections 88 to 90 and its logic.

1. The Architecture

• The trying court (Section 88): offences under the Act are tried by the magistracy of the prescribed level, the Metropolitan Magistrate or Judicial Magistrate of the first class standard the chapter adopts, no court inferior trying the Act's offences, matching the offences' seriousness to the forum's seniority.
• Non-cognizable character (Section 89): the Act's offences are non-cognizable: no arrest or police investigation without judicial authorisation, the criminal process here begins in a courtroom, not a police station, which is the chapter's protection against acquisition disputes being fought through FIRs.
• The complaint gate for Requiring Bodies (Section 90): no court shall take cognizance of any offence alleged to have been committed by a Requiring Body except on a complaint in writing made by the Collector, any other officer authorised by the appropriate Government, or any member of the affected family, the verified text, and the chapter's most important sentence.

2. The Logic of the Design

The three provisions balance two risks the chapter could not ignore. The first is under-enforcement: if prosecution of a defaulting project depended on the same administration that failed to enforce the award, Section 85 would sleep; Section 90 answers by arming the affected family itself, any member, with the right to complain in writing, so the person the default starves holds the criminal key without needing official sponsorship. The second is weaponisation: land disputes are village disputes, and cognizable, police-driven offences would convert every acquisition into cross-FIR warfare; the non-cognizable character and the written-complaint route keep the process judicial, deliberate and document-led, which suits offences whose proof lives in the acquisition's own records. The magistracy floor completes the balance: serious enough forums to handle corporate and official accused, local enough to be reachable by the complainant the design empowers.

3. Working the Provisions

• The complainant's checklist: a Section 90 complaint is in writing, identifies the Requiring Body's offence (typically the Section 85 contravention), and pleads the complainant's standing, Collector, authorised officer, or membership of an affected family on the acquisition's own census and award records.
• The evidence base: the Act's paper trail, awards, the Section 38 windows, audit reports, committee minutes, makes these prosecutions documentary; the complaint should annex the record that proves the duty, the default and the dates.
• Corporate and official accused: the Section 86 and 87 formulas supply the persons arraigned, with the State-amendment sanction gates (AP, Maharashtra, Haryana) checked before proceeding against government employees in those States (Topic 83).
• Limitation and process: the ordinary criminal procedure of complaints, cognizance and limitation under the general law applies within the chapter's modifications; continuing defaults, compensation unpaid month after month, are continuing offences for limitation's purposes on ordinary principles.

4. Related Topics and Provisions

• The offences (Topics 81 and 82): what is prosecuted
• The accused formulas (Topic 83): who stands trial
• The monitoring stack (Topic 59): where the documentary proof accumulates
• Affected family (Topic 13): the standing that unlocks Section 90