Panchami land given to the depressed class persons cannot be sold by a person belonging to other community (other than a scheduled caste) even to a person belonging to Scheduled caste, the Madras High Court has held.
Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar made the ruling while dismissing a petition from M Gunasekaran, who sought to direct the Sub-Registrar, Nemilli, Arakonam taluk in Vellore, to register the instrument of sale deed presented by him.
Petitioner, belonging to scheduled caste community, intended to purchase from one K Vimalraj a house plot measuring 1840 sq.ft in Nemilli Panchayat union. Vimalraj, a non-dalit, somehow acquired the right over the property by a sale deed dated March 9, 2007 registered with the Sub-Registrar-II, Arakonam. Petitioner proposed to buy the property. But when the document was presented for registration, the Sub-Registrar refused to register the same. Hence, the present petition.
Additional government pleader P Sanjay Gandhi submitted that the Sub-Registrar refused to register the document since the said vendor Vimalraj had somehow acquired the property and did not belong to SC.
The property could be conveyed only to a scheduled caste person. The judge said that the fact that vendor Vimalraj belonged to a non-SC community was not disputed by the petitioner.
The issue as to whether the Panchami land given to the depressed class person could be sold to a person from another community was considered by a division bench and it was held that the restriction not to sell the Panchami lands to other than depressed community people was upheld.