The Supreme Court upheld the Tamil Nadu Land Acquisition Laws Act of 2019, which retroactively revived three state laws from 1978, 1997, and 2001. This overrides a previous high court ruling that struck down the state laws for not complying with a new national land acquisition law from 2013. The Supreme Court affirmed the legislature's right to pass retrospective laws and determined the 2019 Act sufficiently revived the prior state laws in line with the high court's judgment. This sets a precedent allowing other states to pass similar laws retroactively validating past land acquisitions.

2. • The Supreme Court recently upheld the TN Land Acquisition Laws Act, 2019. The history of such
laws in Tamil Nadu started in 1978.
• For more than 100 years, land acquisition in India was governed by the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
Under this law, the Central government in India could acquire land for public purposes, such as to
build infrastructure. There were State laws too, and these worked in tandem with the Central law
and remained valid as long as they did not clash with the Central law.
• Then in 2013, Parliament passed a new law: The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in
Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (‘LARR’). This new law introduced
provisions for obtaining the consent of landowners, increasing the compensation they received and
mandating social impact assessments, among other things.
• Many celebrated this new approach to land acquisition, particularly landowners and those working
in the field of resettlement policy. However, for State governments, this would make the process of
land acquisition more cumbersome as the existing State laws did not adhere to some provisions of
the new Central law.
• Tamil Nadu was one of these States. It had three special land acquisition laws on its books:
• Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Harijan Welfare Schemes Act, 1978, Tamil Nadu Acquisition of
Land for Industrial Purposes Act, 1997 and the Tamil Nadu Highways Act, 2001 (‘TN Acts’). These
laws did not contain similar consent and assessment provisions, and became repugnant and void.

3. MADRAS HC Struck Down 2014
Amendment
• In 2014, the Tamil Nadu legislature attempted to side-step these provisions by invoking a
constitutional provision (Article 254) that allowed States to amend a central Act. The Tamil
Nadu legislature passed an amendment to the LARR that said that the TN Acts would be
exempt from the provisions of the LARR. This exemption would apply retrospectively from
January 1st 2014.
• In 2019, the Madras High Court struck down Tamil Nadu’s attempt to create an exemption
for the TN Acts. They held that the Acts had been void due to repugnancy and therefore
could not be revived through making an exception in the Central Act. The TN Acts had to
be passed afresh.
• Two weeks later, the Tamil Nadu legislature passed the Tamil Nadu Land Acquisition Laws
(Revival of Operation, Amendment and Validation) Act, 2019 (‘2019 Act’). This time, they
explicitly said that the TN Acts would be ‘revived’. They obtained the President’s assent,
which allowed them to side-step the question of repugnancy.
• Supreme Court Upholds 2019 Act
• The Supreme Court dealt with three

4. Supreme Court Upholds 2019 Act
• The Supreme Court dealt with three issues related to validity of
the 2019 Act.
• Retrospective Effect

5. Retrospective Effect
• The first was the fact that the 2019 Act revived the laws
retrospectively.
• The 2019 Act said they were revived on September 26th, 2013,
which was 6 years before the 2019 Act was passed.
• This coincided with the day the LARR had received
Presidential assent.
• The Supreme Court affirmed the right of the legislature to
retrospectively revive the laws.
• Relying on precedent of previous laws with retrospective effect,
they held that this was permissible.

6. ‘Referential’ Law
• The second issue was that the 2019 Act only mentioned the
name of each of the TN Acts and that they would stand revived.
• They did not pass the whole text of the TN Acts again. The
Supreme Court clarified that legislation could be ‘referential’.
• So, by referring to the name of the TN Acts, it was clear what
the substance of the law being passed was.
• The TN Acts would thus be revived.

7. Parliament and the Judiciary
The third issue was whether the Legislature could directly
overrule the Madras HC judgment.
The Court held that since the 2019 Act had explicitly revived the
laws, they were complying with the Madras High Court judgment.
Rather than simply overturning it, the legislature had removed
the reason for the High Court’s judgment.
The judgment had held that the TN Acts needed to be passed
afresh and revived.
The Legislature had revived them through the 2019 Acts. So, the
2019 Act was valid and complied with the judgment.

8. Affirming the Right to Pass Retrospective
Laws
• With this interpretation of the law, the Supreme Court has
cleared the path for other States to pass similar retrospective
laws.
• Many other states had also passed amendments for
exemptions for certain projects.
• However, these were more limited than the TN Acts. The
Supreme Court judgment has allowed the Tamil Nadu
government to avoid cancelling acquisitions they have already
done.
• Any other legal challenges in other States will follow this
judgment, based on the specifics of each case.

9. Retrospective criminal laws

10. • Retrospective criminal laws are prohibited by the Constitution.
• However, Parliament has the power to enact other retrospective
laws. This is commonly done for taxation provisions.
• The Supreme Court has mostly upheld such tax laws.