The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Civic body officials remove encroachments

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Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Civic body officials remove encroachments

Staff Reporter

Land was given to Nandivaram-Guduvancheri town panchayat in 1986

Photo : A. Muralitharan

Reclaiming property: Officials of the Nandivaram -Guduvanchery town panchayat removing encroachments in Kumaran Nagar on Tuesday. —

KANCHEEPURAM: Officials of the Nandivaram-Guduvancheri town panchayat on Tuesday removed encroachments on its land.

According to sources, around 11,000 sq. ft of land was given to the town panchayat for public use in 1986 when a real estate businessman promoted a residential layout in town panchayat limit.

However, he sold the same piece of land to five persons in 2001-02 through his power of attorney.

Three of the five persons, who purchased the land, constructed houses while the remaining kept their part of land vacant.

When the town panchayat issued notices to the ‘encroachers’ to vacate the land recently, they approached the Madras High Court seeking relief.

However, their petitions were dismissed when counsel for the civic body said that in two different cases relating to removal of encroachments at Avaniyapuram in Madurai district and Tiruchengodu in Salem district, the court had rejected the plea for compensation stating that such relief had to be sought from those who had sold the land and not from the government.

Subsequently, officials of the town panchayat removed the encroachments in the presence of senior district revenue officials and the police on Tuesday.

Commending the officials for initiating bold steps to reclaim the land, residents of Nandivaram-Guduvancheri wanted the official machinery to reclaim around one-and-half grounds near an irrigation tank from encroachers.

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