Section 24: Proceedings Initiated under the 1894 Act

On 1 January 2014 thousands of acquisitions stood at every stage of the 1894 pipeline, and Section 24 decides their fate: new-Act compensation where no award had been made, the old Act's completion where one had, and, in the provision that has out-litigated the rest of the statute combined, deemed lapse for stale acquisitions where the State had neither taken possession nor paid. This note sets out the section's structure; the case-law war over sub-section (2) is Topic 86.

1. The Structure

Limb	Situation on 1 January 2014	Consequence
Section 24(1)(a)	Proceedings initiated under the 1894 Act, but no award under its Section 11 had been made	The 1894 proceedings continue, but all the 2013 Act's provisions relating to the determination of compensation apply: the land is priced on the new formula, multiplier, assets, 100% solatium
Section 24(1)(b)	An award under Section 11 of the 1894 Act had been made	The proceedings continue under the 1894 Act as if it had not been repealed: old-Act completion for acquisitions past the award
Section 24(2)	The award was made five years or more before commencement (on or before 1 January 2009), but physical possession has not been taken or the compensation has not been paid	The proceedings are deemed to have lapsed; the appropriate Government may, if it chooses, initiate the acquisition afresh under the 2013 Act
The proviso to 24(2)	An award was made, but compensation for a majority of the land holdings has not been deposited in the beneficiaries' accounts	All beneficiaries specified in the 1894 Act's Section 4 notification become entitled to compensation under the 2013 Act

2. The Design

A graduated bridge: the further an acquisition had travelled, the more of the old law it keeps: nothing done beyond notification, new compensation; award made, old completion; award made but left to rot, lapse, the section rewards diligence and punishes the pipeline's corpses.
The five-year logic: sub-section (2) mirrors the Act's own discipline elsewhere, Section 25's twelve-month award clock and Section 101's five-year utilisation rule: an award five years old with neither possession nor payment is an acquisition in name only, holding the owner's title hostage while giving him neither land nor money.
The proviso's separate mercy: the proviso is a compensation upgrade, not a lapse: where most holdings' compensation never reached the beneficiaries' accounts, everyone under the notification is lifted to 2013 compensation even though the acquisition survives, a distinct limb the courts have had to keep separate from sub-section (2)'s guillotine.
Fresh initiation priced at today: lapse does not bar the project; it re-prices it: fresh proceedings under the 2013 Act mean a fresh SIA season, current market value and the full new package, the fiscal incentive that makes the section more than housekeeping.

3. Reading the Section

Three interpretive anchors frame everything Topic 86 details. First, the section is transitional, not resurrectionary: it operates on proceedings alive at commencement, and the Constitution Bench has held it does not revive claims already dead, acquisitions concluded, challenges abandoned, or lapses already suffered under the old law's own clocks. Second, its key phrases, "physical possession has not been taken", "compensation has not been paid", "deposited in the account of the beneficiaries", are terms of art whose meaning was fought from Pune Municipal Corporation (2014) to Indore Development Authority (2020), with the five-judge bench settling possession-by-panchnama, payment-by-tender and the conjunctive reading of the conditions. Third, the computation of the five years excludes periods covered by interim orders of courts, the State is not penalised for obeying a stay, a point the 2020 decision settled against the earlier view. For the practitioner, Section 24 questions reduce to four dates: the award's date, the possession date (and its mode), the payment or deposit date (and its destination), and the spans of any stays.

⚠ Key point

Section 24: no 1894 award → 2013 compensation (24(1)(a)); award made → 1894 completion (24(1)(b)); award five years old with possession not taken or compensation not paid → deemed lapse, with fresh acquisition possible only under the 2013 Act at today's values (24(2)); and where a majority of holdings' compensation was never deposited in the beneficiaries' accounts, all beneficiaries take 2013 compensation though the acquisition survives (the proviso). Transitional, not resurrectionary; stay periods excluded; the operative phrases defined by the Indore Development Authority Constitution Bench.

4. Related Topics and Provisions

The Section 24(2) litigation (Topic 86): Pune Municipal to Indore, the full war
The lapse family (Topic 26): Sections 14, 19, 25 and 101 beside it
Compensation under the new formula (Topics 36 to 42): what 24(1)(a) delivers
Landmark judgments (Topic 116): Section 24's cases in the wider canon