Date:08/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/08/stories/2008100854230600.htm

Tamil Nadu

Notice to Collector on burial grounds

Staff Reporter

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered notice to the Coimbatore Collector and the Assistant Executive Engineer of the PWD (Irrigation Sub-division) on petitions seeking to quash the latter’s order directing the Annur Town Panchayat and Annur Dakni Sunnath Masjid Jamath Committee to vacate burial grounds in the village.

A Division Bench, comprising Justices T. Sudanthiram and K. Kannan, ordered notice returnable by a week. In her petition, Annur Town Panchayat president S. Vasanthamani submitted that the burial grounds maintained by the panchayat and the mosque were on the corners of an Eri Poromboke land and were in use for several years.

The Collector had sanctioned Rs.1.23 lakh in 2005 for constructing a cremation shed on the burial ground maintained by the panchayat. The Assistant Executive Engineer had, all of a sudden, in September 2008 issued notice to the petitioners to vacate the burial grounds. No other government land was available in the village to be used as burial ground, she said adding, the burial grounds did not pose any hindrance to storing of water.

The Jamath committee, in its petition, submitted that the order passed by the PWD was arbitrary, illegal and against the principles of natural justice. A survey was not conducted according to procedure laid under the Tamil Nadu Protection of Tanks and Eviction of Encroachments Act, 2007.