CHENNAI: Senior citizens at a legal aid camp shared their spine-chilling experiences of their land being grabbed. The lone elders, whose children are largely employed abroad, narrated their struggle to retrieve it.
Rangasamy, who owns a piece of plot at Chettiar Agaram near Maduravoyal here, alleged that a real estate broker attempted to grab his housing plot with help of a police official. “The plot has been owned by me for 20 years. When a local induced me to sell it off, I refused and afterwards, he took the help of a DSP to grab it. I have to face nine (civil) cases in the fallout,” he said.
Similarly, Besant Nagar-based Mythili Srinivasan, a mother of two daughters, owns a plot at Velachery worth `3.5 crore. “It was bought by my husband 50 years ago. Later, a person virtually blocked the pathway leading to our site and threatened me with dire consequences, if we stake claims to our land. However, when we took up the case with the police, the land- grabber has now offered to return our land,” she said.
Another elderly person from Adyar, Srinivasan, said that he owns a house at Panaiyur that he had rented out over a decade back. “Now, the tenant says he will not vacate the house as he has been living there for 15 years. Is it possible?” he asked a team of lawyers present at the camp jointly organised by the Rotary club of Madras Mount and Senior Citizens group of Besant Nagar.
Earlier, addressing the gathering, Madras HC former judge Justice T N Vallinayagam emphasised the need to verify encumbrance certificate for at least 30 years while taking possession of a land.
Speaking about the Survey and Boundaries Act, he said it was essential to take notice of your land boundaries in the four directions. “Public should not be scared of catching a person and handing him over to police when he is found grabbing land,” he said.