Airport Authority must pay landowners decades-old acquisition compensation within eight weeks, Madras High Court upholds bank-account attachment

The Airports Authority of India (AAI) challenged orders dated 13 August 2025 of the Subordinate Court, Alandur, attaching AAI’s primary bank account in execution of land-acquisition compensation awards.

The awards concerned land acquired for AAI’s benefit.

The Land Acquisition Officer awarded Rs.6.88 per sq. ft.; on reference, compensation was enhanced to Rs.100 per sq. ft., and the reference proceedings concluded in 2014.

AAI argued that appeals against the awards were pending, that no coercive execution should proceed, and that compensation liability rested with the State as the acquiring authority.

The landowners relied on the long delay in compensation and AAI’s prior deposit of Rs.10 crores.

The High Court noted that no stay or other protection against enforcement had been obtained.

1. Whether the Executing Court could order attachment of AAI’s primary bank account to enforce the compensation awards despite appeals being pending

2. Whether AAI could resist execution on the ground that compensation liability lay with the State, rather than AAI as beneficiary of the acquisition

The judgment cites no specific statute or precedent.

It applied the principle that, absent a stay of the compensation awards, their enforcement through execution could proceed.

It also rejected AAI’s attempt to shift responsibility to the State in the circumstances of these acquisitions: AAI had itself deposited compensation, the acquisitions were not governed by the State’s later policy requiring land to be provided free of cost, and the acquired lands had been used for AAI’s benefit.

The High Court held that the awards had remained unenforced for years and that AAI had obtained no interim stay or protection in its pending appeals.

The Rs.10-crore deposit did not, in the Court’s view, materially answer the outstanding compensation liability.

AAI’s reliance on the State’s role as acquiring authority and on a later policy change was unpersuasive because the deposits had been made by AAI and the acquisitions at issue predated that policy.

Given the absence of a stay and the prolonged non-payment to the landowners, the Court found no perversity or infirmity in the Executing Court’s attachment order; the impact of attachment on AAI’s operations was not sufficient, by itself, to warrant interference.

On full settlement, the attachment would stand raised; otherwise, the landowners could pursue further lawful execution steps.

Following pronouncement, the Court further directed that applications to implead deceased claimants’ legal representatives be entertained without delay and that, after the legal representatives’ bank details were ascertained, AAI make direct RTGS/NEFT payments within eight weeks.

It also granted liberty to the claimants in E.P. Nos. 133, 134 and 135 of 2016 to file fresh execution petitions before the Sub Court, Alandur.