CHENNAI: The reclassification of a Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) property at Indira Nagar in Adyar and its sale to 20 beneficiaries below market rate has been stayed by the Madras High Court.

Justice K. Suguna granted the interim injunction, on a writ petition filed by Poochi S. Murugan, general secretary of the TNHB Employees Progressive Union. She also ordered notices to the Housing and Urban Development Department, the TNHB and others.

In his petition, Mr. Murugan submitted that an area measuring 51 grounds and 281 square feet was earmarked as an institutional area for constructing a school, as part of the South Madras Neighbourhood Scheme in 1971.

In October 2005, the TNHB took steps to change the classification of the land from institutional to residential to award it "to a favoured few" under the Government discretionary quota without following the statutory mandate, he said. Claiming that the reclassification was done following a "specific instruction from the personal secretary to the Minister for Housing and Urban Development," the petitioner said the TNHB made 20 plots at the spot and "whimsically fixed the rate at Rs. 45 lakh" per ground before selling them.

The petitioner cited three irregularities in the transaction. First, the reclassification ought not have been done as the plot was meant for a neighbourhood school. Second, though Section 48B of the Land Acquisition Act provided for reconveyance of an acquired land, in case it was lying unutilised, steps were taken to sell it to some favoured few. Third, though the market value of the property at the site was between Rs. 65 to 75 lakh, authorities fixed the value at Rs. 45 lakh and sold it without following due process of law.

Maintaining that the entire transaction lacked transparency, the petitioner said it had caused a financial loss to the tune of Rs. four to six crore to the Government. The "stealthy and discreet" manner in which the matter was handled gave "great suspicion" and it needs to be probed, Mr. Murugan said.

He prayed for the quashing of the impugned order passed in October 2005, and stay the sale of plots in the meantime.

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