Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Court orders status quo on grant of pattas

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI : The Madras High Court has ordered status quo on grant of house site pattas to people evicted from the Porur lakebed.

Justice K. Suguna passed the interim order on a writ petition filed by an 85-year-old ex-serviceman, who said they were given land at Gudapakkam and Meyyur in 1946 in recognition of their service to the nation. He said that in 2004 another Government Order was passed directing the district administration to grant pattas to ex-servicemen and their legal heirs if they were in occupation of the land for over 30 years. He said that during these years, the ex-servicemen had spent huge money and labour on the land assigned to them, and had developed it into a residential and agricultural property.

But now, the Government has sought to dispossess them of their lands to distribute them to persons displaced from the Porur lake bed, the petitioner said, adding that the attempt to resettle persons from Porur lake bed by displacing long-time occupants of the land was unlawful and high-handed.

"It is not open to the respondents to interfere with our possession and enjoyment, except by due process of law," he said, adding that no notice of any proposed acquisition, as contemplated in the land acquisition laws, had been issued to them.

He sought to forbear the Government from in any manner dispossessing the ex-servicemen of their property in Gudapakkam and Meyyur in Poonamallee taluk.

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