TN told to survey waterbody in Cuddalore to remove encroachment

CHENNAI: The first bench of the Madras High Court had directed the Tamil Nadu government to conduct a survey on a lake in Tholar Village of Cuddalore district since it has been alleged that the water body is under the encroachment of a few locals.

“If any encroachment is found, then the respondent officials would be at liberty to proceed further in accordance with the law, after issuing notice to the encroachers,” Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the direction on disposing of a petition filed by S Ramachandran of Cuddalore.

The petitioner sought a direction to the district administration to consider his representation dated February 16, seeking the eviction of encroachments in a lake at Tholar Village.

“About eight locals of the village had occupied the lake channel in Tholar Village. Even as I made representation to the respondent officials, they did not act upon it,” the petitioner submitted.

Recording the submissions, the CJ directed the Cuddalore district Collector, Virudhachalam Revenue Divisional Officer and Thittakkudi tahsildar to take action to conduct a survey in the disputed place pursuant to the representation made by the petitioner.

J Ravindran, the additional advocate general submitted that if the representation is pending consideration, they will take action in accordance with the law.

“A survey needs to be conducted first to identify whether there is an encroachment or not. If we found encroachments on the particular place, the same will be removed according to the law,” AAG informed the court.