Influential people in the society are the large scale grabbers of government lands across the country, the Madras High Court observed on Wednesday after being told that Singanallur MLA K.R. Jeyaram of AIADMK and Bharatiya Janata Party district president U. Balaji Uthama Ramasamy had illegally got government lands at Velankurichi village transferred to their names and also constructed several buildings on those lands.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam directed the Commissioner of Land Administration to take possession of the entire extent of 45.82 acres within four weeks and utilise the lands as well as the buildings for public purposes. The orders were passed on a joint writ petition filed by the MLA, the BJP district president and others in 2018 against a Revenue Divisional Officer’s 2017 order refusing to grant ‘patta’ (revenue document on land ownership) for the property.
On perusal of the records, the judge found that the land originally belonged to G. Govindasamy Naidu but had got declared as surplus under the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling) Act, 1961. However, the legal heirs did not hand over the property to the government in accordance with the law and instead continued to approach the government officials, besides resorting to legal remedies before the High Court, in order to obtain patta for the land.
