Citation: Mumbai International Airport Limited v. Airports Authority of India, FAO(OS) (COMM) 202/2024, Delhi High Court, decided on 16.10.2026 | 2026:DHC:9264-DB
In an appeal under Section 37 of the Arbitration Act, the court only checks whether the Section 34 court stayed within its limits, and cannot reassess the merits or prefer its own reading of the contract over a plausible one adopted by the tribunal. A judgment is not non-speaking merely because it reproduces portions of the award, as long as it meaningfully examines the grounds of challenge. Failure to discuss each piece of evidence separately is not patent illegality unless its omission is material and the conclusion cannot be sustained without it. Post-contract letters and payments do not amend the contract.
The Delhi High Court has dismissed Mumbai International Airport Limited’s (MIAL) appeal against an arbitral award that rejected its claim that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) must transfer its lessor’s rights under a 2002 lease of airport land to Sahara (Batra) Hospitality.
AAI had leased about 30,047 sq. m of land at the Mumbai airport to Sahara for 29 years in 2002. In 2006, under the privatisation, AAI and MIAL signed the Operation, Management and Development Agreement (OMDA), which excluded land held under “Existing Leases” like Sahara’s from the premises given to MIAL until those leases ended. MIAL said that Article 5.2(b)(i) of the OMDA required AAI to transfer or novate its interest as lessor under the Sahara lease. It relied on a 2004 inter-ministerial recommendation, AAI’s letter of 9 June 2006, ten years of lease rent passed on to it by AAI until April 2019, and Civil Aviation Ministry communications. A three-member tribunal rejected all of MIAL’s claims in March 2023, and the Single Judge refused to set aside the award in April 2024. Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Bharat Parashar upheld this. They said that a court does not become an appeal court merely because it prefers another reading of the contract, and the Section 37 appeal court’s power is even narrower than under Section 34, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed. On the first issue, they held that a judgment is not non-speaking merely because it reproduces parts of the award, since the question is whether the court meaningfully examined the challenge. On the contract, they accepted that MIAL’s reading was arguable and that the exclusion of the land does not by itself answer whether the lessor’s interest could be transferred. But the Tribunal’s reading, which read the specific provisions on Existing Leases together with the general provision, was a plausible reconciliation and not perverse. The 2006 letter and the rent payments were relevant but could not amend the OMDA or prove a binding obligation, and the Ministry’s communications were not shown to be binding policy directions under Section 40 of the AAI Act. The court left open any separate public-law question on a valid Section 40 direction.