The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Status quo on plan to give land to gunny bag merchants

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 27, 2006
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Status quo on plan to give land to gunny bag merchants

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered status quo on the Government's proposal to hand over a stretch of acquired land at Madhavaram to gunny bag merchants.

Justice K. Suguna passed the interim order on a batch of writ petitions filed by persons whose land was acquired in 1985 for the Madras Metropolitan Development Authority for building a truck and bus terminal there.

On October 23, 2006, rejecting the petitioners' plea to reconvey the acquired land, the Government informed them that it had been taken possession of by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority for being given to gunny bag merchants. Some portion had been taken over by the Public Works Department for formation of roads.

Challenging the order, the petitioners said though over 20 years had elapsed since their land was acquired, they had not received any compensation till date. The lands were neither used for the purpose for which they had been acquired nor were they reconveyed to the original owners. Assailing the move to hand over the land to gunny bag merchants, the petitioners said it did not constitute a "public purpose" as defined under the Act. "The purpose is neither incidental nor a consequence of the public purpose for which the land acquisition proceedings were initiated and lands acquired. The proposal to use the acquired lands for a totally different purpose is highly arbitrary, illegal and contrary to law," they said.

The inordinate delay in utilising the land had vitiated the purpose. The Government must be restrained from transferring the land for any other purpose.

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