CHENNAI: Decrying structural corruption in grabbing valuable government properties, particularly land, the Madras High Court on Monday directed the state government to constitute a high-level committee to identify such properties under illegal occupation and retrieve them.
Justice SM Subramaniam said in the order, “The respondents are directed to appoint a high-level committee to identify the grabbing of government lands, illegalities and irregularities in dealing with the government properties, recovery of arrears of lease rent and unlawful occupation.”
He also directed the government to take all appropriate actions, including criminal prosecution, to protect the financial interest of the state and safeguard the poor and voiceless people. The direction was issued while disposing of a petition filed by Hotel Saravana Bhavan, seeking to revoke a GO passed after DMK came to power cancelling another GO passed during the previous AIADMK government sanctioning allotment of 3.75 acres of government natham poramboke land in Koyambedu revenue village for it.
Refusing to grant the relief, the judge directed the authorities concerned to take possession of the land and utilise it for public cause. Moreover, he ordered criminal prosecution and disciplinary action against all the persons, including the government officials, who are responsible and accountable for grabbing the high-value government properties in Chennai and across the state.
Terming grabbing government land an offence against the state, Justice Subramaniam said legislation to prohibit land grabbing is the need of the hour since there is structural corruption and complicity between the government officials and the political party men in committing the offence. He noted that the court is coming across instances of numerous cases, where not only conditions specified in the revenue standing order have been circumvented, but the entire process of allotting natham land is subverted to assign lands to wealthy, influential and political party men in the society.