MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday issued a series of directions to the Madurai collector, superintendent of police, the district environment engineer and the executive officer of Thirumohur Kalamega Perumal temple to take action against panchayat officials and polluters over dumping of garbage in a temple land in Othakadai.
The directions were issued by a Bench of justices G Jayachandran and KK Ramakrishnan on two petitions filed in 2019 to protect the said 9.49-acre land belonging to Kodandaramaswamy temple -- that comes under the Thirumohur temple administration -- from pollution and encroachment. In the previous hearing last week, the judges had appointed an advocate commissioner to inspect and file a report on the state of the land.
When the matter was heard again on Wednesday, the judges perused the advocate commissioner's report and noted that despite the court's directions, there is no change in the condition of the land. Taking a serious view of this, they directed the collector to take action against Othakadai panchayat officials for failing to do their duty of stopping garbage dumping in the land.
They also told the superintendent of police to take action, under Indian Penal Code, against the polluters or nuisance creators, even if they are public servants. Further directions were issued to the district environment engineer of TN Pollution Control Board to initiate action against industries that release their wastes into the land. The executive officer of the Thirumohur temple was instructed to fence the land and lock it to prevent trespassing.
The above authorities and the advocate commissioner were further told to file a status report at the next hearing on Friday.