On 26 April 2011, a two-judge bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly set out the principles on what constitutes 'taking of possession' of acquired land. There is no universal rule — the mode turns on the nature of the land. For vacant land, the authority going to the spot and drawing up a panchnama ordinarily suffices; where a crop is standing or a structure exists, notice to the occupier and possession before independent witnesses is ordinarily required. It remains the go-to statement of the possession-and-vesting principles.
On 7 March 2011, a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court quashed the acquisition of fertile agricultural land for a district jail at Shahjahanpur, holding that the emergency power under Section 17(4) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 cannot be invoked to dispense with the landowner's right to object under Section 5A absent a real and demonstrable urgency. A digest of the holding, the reasoning on urgency and alternative sites, and where the decision sits in the urgency-clause line.