HC orders Chennai collector to retrieve govt land

CHENNAI: Justice N Anand Venkatesh of Madras High Court had directed the Chennai district Collector to take action for recovering 1.5 acres of government land which is currently occupied by four people in that locality.

The judge passed the order on disposing of the review application filed by the Chennai district Collector against the order passed by the HC in 2021.

Special Government Pleader Edwin Prabhakar for the Collector submitted that the people got orders in favor of them from HC in 2021, XVIII Additional Judge, City Civil Court in 2013 by submitting the fake documents claiming that the land belongs to them.

Recording the submissions, the judge held that his court cannot shut its eyes in a case where the document, on the face of it, is found to be fabricated and fraudulent only on the ground that the civil court has not rendered any findings on the genuineness of the document and had relied upon it and decreed the suit in favor of the petitioners.

The judge passed this observation after scrutinising the document submitted by the government. After examining the land document, the judge confirmed that the name of the vendor mentioned by the original petitioners was inserted in a wrongful way.

The judge also noted that both the trial court as well as the appellate court focused only on the power and jurisdiction of the collector to pass the order of cancellation and both the Courts did not go into the genuineness of the document.

“The judgment and decree passed 2013 are declared to be a nullity and non-est in the eye of law. There shall also be a further direction to the district collector to immediately initiate proceedings against 4 other persons who had utilised the forged and fabricated order dated 15.4.1976 and dealt with the properties,” the judge noted.

R Vetri and N Sivaraman had approached the court challenging the move of Greater Chennai Corporation to construct a compost yard on the land. They claimed that they bought the land from a vendor in 1990. However, the government claimed it was an ‘anadheenam’ land that belongs to the State.