CHENNAI: One of the significant achievements of the AIADMK government during the first year of its term in office is successful retrieval of vast extent of lands from grabbers and returned to owners. Of course, the DMK has been crying foul about this issue and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has stoutly denied the charges.
Indeed, it was a poll promise of Jayalalithaa made during her campaign for 2011 Assembly elections. Till April this year, 39 Anti-land grab cells were formed in various districts and so far 35,703 complaints were received. Of these, 1,225 cases have been registered and 1,299 offenders arrested. A total of 1,317.15 acres valued at Rs 758.04 crore have been recovered and restored to rightful owners. The CM informed this in the Assembly recently. The government has constituted 25 Fast Track Special Court for the quick disposal of land cases.
Strongly denying the charge of DMK leaders that the present government was foisting land-grab cases against them, the CM said they were levelling this allegation perhaps hoping to escape from the charges against them. Jayalalithaa pointed out that even during the DMK regime, land-grab complaints were lodged with the police but no action was taken on them. Following this, many cases were filed before the Madras High Court.
During the DMK regime between 2006 and 2011, as many as 6,615 land grab complaints were received and after preliminary investigation, 1,887 cases were registered and chargesheets were filed in 375. But no action was taken to arrest the accused, the CM pointed out. Due to the pro-active steps of the AIADMK government, people started lodging land grab complaints. In Salem, AngammalColony was a classic example of how people suffered from land-grabbers during the DMK regime. The CM said the case filed against former Deputy CM MK Stalin was an example to prove that the land-grab cases filed were genuine. Explaining how the court had to dismiss the case after Stalin’s side paid an amount of Rs 1.75 crore to the land owner as an out-of-the-court settlement, she said it was crystal clear that the house was taken away at a lesser cost than the actual market rate and what had happened could be described only as a land-grab.