MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed residents to vacate land acquired for the Madurai airport expansion within two weeks.
About 130 persons, including Chandra from Chinna Udaippu in Avaniyapuram, had filed a petition in 2024 stating that their land was acquired for the airport expansion project and compensation had been paid.
However, they contended that the government had failed to provide rehabilitation and resettlement as mandated under rules and was attempting to evict them without such arrangements.
Earlier, the High Court had restrained authorities from evicting the residents.
During the hearing before Justices Jayachandran and Ramakrishnan on Thursday, the government submitted that land acquisition proceedings had commenced in 2008 and compensation had been disbursed. It also informed the court that house sites would be allotted on compassionate grounds to 64 beneficiaries and houses would be constructed for them.
In their order, the judges directed the petitioners to vacate the acquired land within two weeks, failing which the government may initiate action to evict them.
The court further directed the petitioners to submit representations to the Collector seeking allotment of two cents of house site each, as assured by the government. The Madurai District Collector was directed to allocate necessary funds for the construction of houses to the petitioners