B.Govindaraj v. The State Of Tamil Nadu
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
DATED : 06.01.2022 CORAM :
THE HON'BLE MR.MUNISHWAR NATH BHANDARI, ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE P.D.AUDIKESAVALU W.P.NOS.20210 AND 20219 OF 2020 1.B.Govindaraj 2.Ramachandran 3.Carolin Henry 4.Poonkothai 5.Vasantha 6.Srinivasan 7.Thilagavathi 8.Vijaya 9.Padmavathy 10.Jayalakshmi 11.Muthulaskhmi 12.Leeladevi 13.Vijaya 14.Durgadevi 15.Bhuvaneswari 16.Manimegala 17.Malarvizhi 18.Chitra 19.Archana 20.Adilakshmi 21.Swarnalatha 22.Vijayalakshmi 23.Raju 24.Bharathi 25.Shanthi 26.Fathima Mary 27.Rajeswari 28.Lakshmi 29.Shanthi 30.Malika 31.Banu 32.Neela 33.Vijaya 34.Shanthi 35.Amutha 36.Manjula 37.Saraswathi
38.Geethabai 39.Malliga 40.Perumal 41.Periyanayagi 42.Cathy Burulene 43.Jayalakshmi 44.Shanthi 45.Lakshmi 46.Indumathy 47.Meena 48.Lakshmi 49.Amul 50.Maheswari 51.Grace 52.Narayanammal 53.Devika 54.Muniyammal 55.Subhashini 56.Subathra 57.Vittabai 58.Govindammal 59.Dulasi 60.Duraibabu 61.Saratha 62.Devagi 63.Janakiraman 64.Devaki 65.Aarokiya Mary 66.Rani 67.Rathi 68.Saraswathi 69.Balaji 70.Sumathi 71.Karthikeyan 72.Lakshmi 73.Vijaya 74.Ponnammal 75.Rajesh 76.Mallika 77.Nagarathinam 78.Sasikala 79.Mani 80.Ramamirtham 81.Rangaraj 82.Iyappan 83.Padmavathy 84.Florence 85.Ramalu 86.Ethirajulu 87.Balakrishnan
88.Janagiraman 89.Murugesan 90.Kumar 91.Ranganathan 92.Maragadhammal 93.Neelamegan 94.Anuradha 95.Nagalakshmi 96.Mani 97.Saraswathi 98.Balaji 99.Megavathy 100.Sundararaj 101.Santhakumari 102.Dilli Babu 103.Vijaya Bala 104.Dhanambal 105.Karunakaran 106.Annakili 107.Savithiri 108.SriHari 109.M.S Saleem 110.Jayanthi
...Petitioners in W.P.No.20210/2020
1.Prema w/o Dhamodaran 2.Ezhilarasi 3.Nadhiya 4.Maragadammal 5.Anjali 6.Raghupathy 7.Valli 8.Nagalaskhmi 9.Prema w/o Ruban 10.Gowri 11.Lakshmi 12.Ponnamma 13.Prema w/o Deenadhayalan 14.Datchayini 15.Sujatha 16.Darthy Ezhilarasi 17.Ankamma 18.Mariyammal 19.Thilagavathi 20.Naveen Kumar
...Petitioners in W.P.No.20219/2020
Vs 1.The State of Tamil Nadu Rep. by its Secretary to Government Revenue Department Fort St. George, Chennai - 600 009.
2.The District Collector, Chengalet District, Chengalpet.
3.The District Revenue Officer Chengalet District, Chengalpet.
4.The Thasildhar Chengalpattu Taluk, Chengalpattu Chengalpet District 5.The Assistant Engineer Overseer of Water Resources Organisation, Public Works Department Padapai, Chengelput District.
6.The Executive Officer Town Panchayat Chitlapakkam, Chitlapakkam Chengalpet District.
...Respondents in both WPs
Prayer: Petitions filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for a writ of certiorarified mandamus calling for the entire records of the 5th respondent From-III notice dated 16.12.2020 issued to the petitioners and quash the same and further forbearing the respondents from proceeding further the process of demolition and eviction and consequently direct them to follow the due process of law in future for the petitioners in respect of their properties situated in Survey No.256/1, Chitlapakkam Village, Tambaram Taluk, Chengalpet District. For the Petitioners (in both) :
Mr.M.Vijay Anand For the Respondents (in both) :
Mr.J.Ravindran Addl. Advocate General assisted by Mrs.R.Anitha, Spl. Government Pleader COMMON ORDER (Order of the Court was made by the Hon'ble Acting Chief Justice) The writ petitions have been filed to challenge the notices given in Form-III dated 16.12.2020 under the Tamil Nadu Protection of Tanks and Eviction of Encroachment Rules, 2007 (for short, "Rules of 2007")
2. Learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the petitioners are residing in the land in dispute for more than 60
years and made applications for issuance of pattas. Ignoring the aforesaid, show cause notices have been issued to the petitioners in Form-III. It is even ignoring the fact that the notices aforesaid could not have been issued without conducting a survey in consonance with the Rules of 2007. A request for conducting survey was made by the petitioners, but without acceding to the aforesaid request, Form-III notices have been issued to the petitioners.
3. A reference to the earlier litigation by the petitioners and others has also been made, where the writ petition bearing W.P.No.15117 of 2020 was decided with certain directions given in paragraph 8 of the said order. Allegations have been made regarding non-compliance of the directions given therein and, accordingly, the action of the official respondents has been questioned even on that ground.
4. Learned counsel for the petitioners further submitted that the petitioners are not encroachers on the land in question and the land is otherwise not a waterbody. In view of the above, the action taken by the respondents under Rules of 2007 is not even permissible. For all the reasons aforesaid, challenge to the notices in Form-III has been made by the petitioners. It is further submitted that pursuant to the directions given in the public interest ligation in reference to encroachments on waterbody, the respondents are now taking action and show cause notices in Form-III have been issued to many persons, including the petitioners. In view of the above, a prayer is made to set aside the impugned show cause notices in Form-III dated 16.12.2020.
5. We have considered the submissions made by the petitioners. The facts on record show that the petitioners are in the second round of litigation because the first writ petition bearing W.P.No.15117 of 2020 filed by the petitioners was decided by this court by an order dated 4.11.2020. The said writ petition was disposed of by giving directions in paragraph
8. Paragraph 8 is quoted hereunder for ready reference: "8. Therefore it is open to the 2nd respondent to take necessary steps to find out whether the superstructures put up by the petitioners herein are authorised / unauthorised / deviated and if the result of the same discloses any unauthorised / deviated / illegal construction, immediate and necessary steps will be taken in accordance with law to demolish the same, by also adhering to the principles of natural justice, in response to the impugned show cause notices issued by the 5th respondent. In the light of the submission made by the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners
that the individual replies by enclosing relevant necessary and authenticated documents have been submitted by the petitioners through a registered post with acknowledgment, the 5th respondent is directed to consider the said representations on merits and in accordance with law and pass appropriate orders within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and communicate the decision taken, to the petitioners and till such time, shall defer further decision in terms of the impugned notices. It is also made clear that the petitioners, till the disposal of the representations to the 5th respondent, shall not create any third party in respect of the respective lands and superstructures in question."
6. A perusal of the directions given in W.P.No.15117 of 2020 would show that the respondents therein were required to determine as to whether the superstructures put up by the petitioners are authorised or unauthorised and if it was found to be unauthorised, necessary steps were directed to be taken in accordance with law to demolish the same by adhering to the principles of natural justice. It is after taking note of the aforesaid directions that individual replies were given by the petitioners to the show cause notices and thereby, the fifth respondent be directed to consider each representation on merits and in accordance with law and pass appropriate orders within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of the order and till a decision is communicated, the respondents were directed to defer further action pursuant to the impugned notices.
7. The directions referred to above were given when a challenge was made to the show cause notices dated 23.9.2020 asking the petitioners to appear on 01.10.2020. The said notices were not set aside by the court in the earlier litigation, rather appropriate directions were given. The respondents, in furtherance to the aforesaid, have caused notices in Form-III of Rules of 2007 which were also replied by the petitioners. No action has yet been taken and without consideration of the replies sent by the petitioners, the respondents would not proceed further in the matter. In fact, when show cause notices were earlier given, it was challenged by way of a writ petition. The directions were given therein to the respondents for action in compliance to the principles of natural justice and, accordingly, notices have been issued to the petitioners. The challenge to the same has been made on the ground that without causing a survey, further action could not have been taken. The aforesaid plea was not raised in the
earlier litigation. No direction for it was given. The petitioners have otherwise failed to show title documents of the land or pattas for it, other than to submit that the applications for issuance of pattas have been submitted. The cognizance to it was not given by the respondents as it is a waterbody.
8. In any case, we find that the action pursuant to the notices in Form-III would be taken by the respondents after complying the directions issued by this court in the earlier writ petition and, accordingly, we are not inclined to interfere with the notices issued in Form-III, but intend to dispose of the writ petitions with a direction to the respondents that after proper consideration of replies given by the petitioners, further action would be taken.
9. It is made clear that before taking further action, the respondents would cause demarcation of waterbody. The action in that regard would be completed by 31.01.2022 and, if on demarcation, any encroachment is found in the waterbody, after considering the replies submitted by the petitioners, further action to remove the encroachments would be taken as was directed by this court in the earlier litigation. With the aforesaid observations and directions, the writ petitions are disposed of. No costs. W.M.P.Nos.24976, 24977, 24979, 24993, 24996 and 24997 of 2020 and W.M.P.No.4543 of 2021 are closed.
Sd/- Deputy Registrar(CS) // True Copy // Sub Assistant Registrar bbr To:
1.The Secretary to Government State of Tamil Nadu Revenue Department Fort St. George, Chennai - 600 009.
2.The District Collector, Chengalet District, Chengalpet.
3.The District Revenue Officer Chengalet District, Chengalpet.
4.The Thasildhar Chengalpattu Taluk, Chengalpattu Chengalpet District 5.The Assistant Engineer Overseer of Water Resources Organisation, Public Works Department Padapai, Chengelput District.
6.The Executive Officer Town Panchayat Chitlapakkam, Chitlapakkam Chengalpet District.
Copy To The Section Officer, Writ Section, High Court, Madras.
+1cc to M/s.M.Vijay Anand, Advocate SR.No.1520 +2ccs to M/s.R.Sivakumar, Advocate SR.No.1307 +1cc to the Government Pleader, S.R.No.1943 [29/04/2022] W.P.Nos.20210 and 20219 of 2020 KSM(CO) RVM(19/01/2022)