Greedy men grabbing poromboke land in violation of social justice: HC ‘Ensure vehicles have valid docu to transport cattle to other states’

CHENNAI: Holding that persons with money power, muscle power and political power alone would be in a position to occupy grama natham lands to a larger extent for exploitation and for unjust gains, the Madras High Court refused to set aside a judgment directing the State to evict a private individual from the land.

Larger extent of lands across Tamil Nadu are grabbed by private individuals and by greedy men under the pretext that they were grama natham lands. This is unconstitutional and in violation of the constitutional mandate of social justice,” wrote a division bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and K Rajasekar.

An appellant, S Anbananthan, moved the HC seeking to set aside a single judge order directing the State to evict him from a grama natham land in Kurumbalur village, Perambalur. The appellant had submitted that he had been in possession of the land for 40 years and also submitted certain judgments to prove that the grama natham lands did not vest with the government.

Special government pleader A Selvendran submitted that though the petitioner was in occupation of grama natham land, it was reclassified as government land. “The land was already allotted to the survey department for construction of the survey office and for staff quarters,” he added.

But the judges ruled that land grabbers found a safe passage for grabbing the public lands under the guise of grama natham land.

“If the anomalous situation is allowed to continue, then the government may not get lands for public purposes in future,” read the judgment. “On account of skyrocketing of market value of lands, people are tempted to grab lands one way or the other, even by creating fraudulent documents and by tampering revenue records. The government officials are also colluding and tampering the revenue records through corrupt activities.”

The bench dismissed the appeal adding that the State must ensure that the lands including grama natham poromboke lands are distributed to serve the common good and “the equal distribution of land to the landless poor people is the mandate. Therefore, the larger extent of such grama natham poromboke cannot be claimed by any individuals for commercial exploitation or their personal gains”.

CHENNAI: The chief bench of the Madras High Court has directed the Union government to ensure whether the vehicles carrying cattle to other States from TN have proper documents.

The first division bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice J Sathya Narayana Prasad heard a petition moved by advocate G Rajendran seeking to direct the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) not to allow any vehicle carrying cattle without valid documents and certificates.

The government submitted a counter stating that 378 cases were registered for transporting cattle to other States without proper documents.

After the submission, the bench directed to look after the vehicles carrying cattle to other States and directed the Union government to initiate action against offenders for transporting cattle without proper documents. The case was posted to April 24 for further submissions.

The petitioner contended that despite the court’s order, thousands of cattle from the State are carried to other States without proper documents. The cattle, transported from Andhra to Kerala through Tamil Nadu, suffer both physically and mentally as they are not allowed to sit and rest, leading to fatality. The petitioner sought to direct the State and the police to prevent vehicles without valid documents from the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI). Further, he also sought to cancel the permit of the vehicles that violate rules,

and hand over the cattle to gosalas.