As per case facts, land acquisition notifications were issued from 1959-1965, with declarations in 1966 and 1969. Awards for compensation, however, were made only between 1980-1983, over fourteen years later, ... which petitioners argued was to peg market values to older dates. Respondents cited a 1984 amendment as validating the delay. The central legal question arose whether the authorities' significant delay in making awards and thus determining compensation based on old market values was permissible, and if the subsequent statutory amendment retrospectively justified this inaction. Finally, the Supreme Court held that such unjustified delay violated the Act's spirit and was not validated by the amendment. While acknowledging public interest prevented quashing the acquisition, the Court directed additional compensation at a specified annual rate, from a reasonable time after a previous judgment until the awards were made, calculated on the original notification date's market value, to mitigate the harm caused by administrative inaction.