CHENNAI: Expressing shock and anguish over the murky deals, transactions and dubious litigations shrouding a highly valuable land in Chennai involving the landlord, buyer and certain lawyers belonging to an online law consultant firm, the Madras High Court has ordered a probe by a special investigation team of Crime Branch-CID (CB-CID) of TN police.
The orders were passed by Justice AD Jagadish Chandira on a civil revision petition filed by Kamalesh Chandrakumar, manager of JMI Law Associates, an online law consultancy firm, seeking to reverse a lower court’s order over the ownership rights of the land located on Subbarayan Salai at Mylapore.
“A special team headed by an officer above the rank of SP in CB-CID shall be formed, which shall conduct an enquiry into the genuineness of the complaints between the parties registered at the Abiramapuram police station,” the judge ordered.
The probe will also be held on the role played by the firm run by Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim, his association with advocate Preethi Baskar and others; and all financial transactions involved.
The judge also directed all the police across TN to ‘strictly adhere’ to the standard operating procedure in registering complaints, issuing CSRs, and take legal opinion from the public prosecutor concerned before closing complaints on immovable property as the case is of civil nature.
Jamal Mohammed Ibrahim, who runs the online law consultancy firm, was introduced to the actual land owners - MA Noor Jehan Beevi, KA Shaik Madar, who is a veteran of Indian Air Force, and Abdul Hassan. They own the 3 grounds and 1,995 sq ft of land where 67 families were encroaching for 98 years, tangled in 40 civil suits. They entered into an agreement on February 6, 2023, for evicting the encroachers and selling the land for Rs 7.25 crore.
Ibrahim, who paid an initial amount of Rs 1 crore, managed to evict several encroachers. However, the landowners backtracked, instead, they initiated negotiations with Life Style Builders. He approached the city civil courts but in vain, and so, knocked on the doors of the HC through Kamalesh.
During the hearing, allegations and counter-allegations were also raised against the petitioner’s counsel Preethi Baskar and the respondents’ counsel S Ganesan and their associates.