Court Direction In acquisition Of 2,000 Acres In Kalapatti Village
The Madras High Court has directed the Chief Secretary to convene a meeting on or before December 18 to resolve the issue relating to the acquisition of 2,000 acres in Kalapatti village in Coimbatore north taluk.Originally, the Tamil Nadu Housing Board sought to acquire the land for construction of houses. But it could not acquire the entire land as the acquisition proceedings were challenged and they were at different stages. In the meanwhile, a substantial portion of the area had been occupied by subsequent purchasers and they had also put up pucca houses. There were also stay on acquisition or stay on dispossession. In such a contingency, even if this court decided the batch of writ petitions on the merits of each case, it might not bring any relief either to the present land owners or to the TN Housing Board, Justice K Chandru pointed out.
Also since the acquisition involved a vast area and the board did not have resources to pay huge compensation for the land owners and considering the permanent structures that had come up in the area, the issues could not be resolved by mere disposal of the writ petitions, the judge said. He directed the Chief Secretary to convene a meeting of the secretaries of the Housing and Urban Development, Revenue, chairman of TNHB and the Coimbatore District Collector to discuss the entire issue.
If a decision was taken by the government based on the field situation, the issue could be resolved by this court, the judge said. If the government decided to give up the acquisition, that could also be mentioned in the report. Alternatively, the land the Board wants to acquire along with the survey numbers might be furnished in the report, the judge added.
