The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Litigation monger fined

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 26, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Litigation monger fined

Staff Reporter

MADURAI: The Madras High Court Bench here on Wednesday imposed a cost of Rs.5000 on a litigation monger for filing a number of petitions against granting ‘patta’ (land ownership document) to encroachers of a road margin in Periyakulam Municipality of Theni district.

A Division Bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice M. Venugopal said: “The encroachers are landless poor people and they have been in possession over the last 20 years and we are able to see that it is only to harass them, petition after petition is being filed by the petitioner.”

Dismissing the latest petition filed by R. Raja alias Ramasamy of Periyakulam, the Judges directed to deposit the amount in favour of the Legal Aid Services Committee functioning on the premises of the Madurai Bench. However, they did not specify any time limit for remitting the amount.

Speaking for the Bench, Mr. Justice Rao pointed out that the Periyakulam Municipality had passed a resolution stating that it had no objection if the district administration preferred to issue ‘patta’ to the encroachers. The municipality also stated that the encroachment was not at all an obstruction. In this backdrop, “we are unable to understand the interest of the petitioner in filing petition after petition to deprive the encroachers of getting pattas,” he said.

Te Bench further said that only streets were vested with municipalities or village panchayats. Road margin lands were vested only with the Revenue department. Unless and otherwise, the road margins were converted into streets and handed over to the municipality or panchayat concerned, the latter had no power to take action against the encroachers on road margin lands.

The petitioner had initially filed a petition in 2005 to direct the authorities to consider his representation to remove the encroachments. It was disposed of with a direction to consider the representation. Thereafter, he filed a contempt petition which was disposed of with a direction to the encroachers to establish their right in a competent court.

Subsequently, he filed one more writ petition to remove the encroachments and another contempt application too before moving the present petition to quash the municipal resolution.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu