CHENNAI: The Madras High Court judgment relaxing the ban on transferring ownership of plots in unapproved layouts has offered a lifeline to nearly five to six lakh such pieces of land across the State.
According to registration department officials, the buzz that was absent in registration offices since the interim stay order was passed, is all set to return in the next couple of days once the department receives the copy of the latest order.
The registration of property on wetlands and unapproved layouts was banned by Madras High Court since October last year, as the government did not notify the amendment to Registration Act. The amended Section 22-A of the law lays down the norms regarding transfer of immovable property by way of sale, gift, marriage exchange or lease.
Even before the court offered amnesty, the housing department had prepared a list of guidelines that should be followed to regularise unapproved layouts.
This essentially lists the no-go areas like property on railway land, in hazardous industrial use zone, on no-saleable open spaces like park, play field reserved in previous layouts approved by Directorate of Town and Country Planning or Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority. So are plots that have encroached road, street or any other land over which the applicant does not possess ownership right, including water bodies belonging to government and lands affected by earlier Tamil Nadu Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act.
In the case of layouts on wetlands in areas other than planning area seeking regularisation, the authority will look into removal or obstruction of common irrigation field channels due to the layout and inundation to decide whether to allow regularisation or reconversion of the layout back as agricultural land.