CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has held that if a person is encroaching upon a government land, he cannot claim the constitutional right to occupy the land as a means for shelter. The first bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy recently made the ruling while dismissing a petition filed by Gunasekaran of Salem seeking to declare section 6 of Tamil Nadu Land Encroachment Act, 1905 as null and void.
Article 19 (1) (e) of the Constitution states that all citizens shall have the right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India but it would not mean to reside on unauthorised manner, the bench said, adding that the law would never come to the aid of a person who unauthorisedly and illegally squats on the property of the government. It further said that government property can be used for public purposes and an individual cannot be allowed to occupy it.
Pointing out the Supreme Court upholding the constitutional validity of the TN Land Encroachment Act, the bench disapproved of the challenge to the Act. The petitioner moved the court after an eviction notice ordered to him to vacate the government land he had encroached upon.