The Tamil Nadu govt acts after the Madras High Court orders to free 62-acres of temple land

When plea came up for hearing, govt pleader P Muthukumar submitted that about 83.26 acres of land belonging to temple was in possession of third parties

PGurus Newsdesk

October 19, 2021

When plea came up for hearing, govt pleader P Muthukumar submitted that about 83.26 acres of land belonging to temple was in possession of third parties

Tamil Nadu govt begins paperwork to recover temple’s encroached land

The Madras High Court (HC) on Monday ordered the HR&CE department to immediately take steps to retrieve the 62-acre temple land, which was encroached upon. The first-judge bench of the Madras HC comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Adikesavalu had ordered the authorities concerned to report in six weeks’ time against the action taken to retrieve the encroached land.

The action of the Madras HC came after a plea filed by Advocate S Xavier Felix that a substantial part of the land belonging to the temple was encroached upon and that the authorities concerned had not taken appropriate steps to retrieve the land.

The court order said, “The report should also indicate how and under what circumstances a part of the land belonging to the temple may have been given to a third party.”

The Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) department have begun the paperwork to retrieve 62 acres of encroached land of Arulmigu Trisoolanathar temple in Tirusulam.

The court has directed the Chennai District Collector and revenue officials to lend all support to the HR&CE department for measuring the land and enable an appropriate report to be filed.

The HR&CE department has directed the temple Executive Officer to coordinate with the revenue officials for measuring the land and to get documentation for the property.
The HR&CE Commissioner also communicated to the Chennai District Collector to provide adequate support to retrieve the lost land following the Madras HC order.

The lawyer representing the DMK government, P Muthukumar told the court that 83.26 acres of land belonging to the temple was in possession of a third party, of which the temple was receiving rent for nearly 21 acres of land.

The court took a note that 62-acre temple land was encroached upon and forged documents were used by the encroachers to usurp the land.

The action was being taken against the encroachers to retrieve the land.

[With Inputs from IANS]

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