On 2 January 2025, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that where the State takes possession of land but pays no compensation for the better part of two decades, the prolonged deprivation violates Article 300A — and that although a Special Land Acquisition Officer cannot on his own shift the statutory date for fixing market value, a constitutional court under Articles 32, 226 or 142 may, in exceptional cases of inordinate State delay, direct that market value be reckoned as of a later date. On the facts, the Court fixed the value as on 22 April 2019. A digest of the holding and its place in the Article 300A line.