NHAI Cannot Be Forced to Return Unused Highway Land

The Ruling

The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Jabalpur bench has closed a recurring corridor dispute.

Land acquired and compensated under the National Highways Act, 1956 vests permanently in the Union of India. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) cannot be directed to return even an unutilised strip.

A Division Bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal and Justice Avanindra Kumar Singh dismissed Kaushalya Devi's plea for return of 0.043 hectares in Khasra No. 633/1, village Kemar, left unused after highway construction.

The Court's Reasoning

The ruling matters beyond the small strip.

Relying on Dayanand vs Union of India and Dadhiram Jatav vs Project Director, NHAI, the Bench held that Section 3D of the National Highways Act leaves no statutory route for return once compensation is paid.

Government Advocate Anubhav Jain pressed this settled position for the State. NHAI counsel Mohan Sausarkar argued a parallel line through the 2013 Act, but the Bench distinguished Pradeep Pandey as an RFCTLARR Act, 2013 matter, not a National Highways Act acquisition.

Commercial Implications

For execution teams, the commercial consequence is structural.

Unutilised corridor land is no longer a contingent liability owners can claw back. It is a permanently vested asset NHAI can redeploy for:

- Widening
- Interchanges
- Wayside amenities
- Future capacity

This redeployment can occur without fresh acquisition, resettlement exposure or new compensation cycles.

That removes a known source of delay and cost escalation on brownfield upgrades and hybrid annuity stretches, where land disputes routinely stall appointed dates.

Statutory Asymmetry and the Wider Signal

The sharper signal is statutory asymmetry.

The 2013 Act carries Section 101, a return mechanism for unutilised acquired land. The National Highways Act has none.

The Supreme Court's Project Director, NHAI vs M. Hakeem had already kept NHA acquisitions outside the 2013 Act's return regime. This Bench reached the same no-return outcome through Dayanand and Dadhiram Jatav.

Land owners retain only a compensation-adequacy lever, not restoration.

For NHAI and MoRTH, corridor land now reads as a permanent state asset — a position likely to be tested again as similar petitions reach the Supreme Court.