Plea claiming forest land dismissed

Chennai: The Madras HC has dismissed a petition from a freedom fighter’s son, which sought to restrain the Forest Department fro­m­­ interfering with his possession of land, measuring 0.98 hectares, in Veng­am­bur village in Erode district.

It held that the collection of any lease rent by the PWD in respect of forest land could not confer any right on the lessee.

A division bench, comprising Justices Chitra Venkat­ram­an and T. S. Sivag­nana­m, allo­w­ed a review application filed by the district forest officer, Erode.

In 2007, B.R.Viswanathan filed a petition, stating that his father was a freedom fighter who had died in 1949, and claimed that land in Vengambur village, after his mother’s death, in his pos­s­ession for 10 years and he was ­paying thekists. He sou­ght a direction to the forest depart­ment not to interfere with his possession of the land.

The bench said, that the district forest officer had, in the rejoinder he had filed, made serious allegations agai­nst the Tahsildar, Erod­e, who was said to have unlawfully altered the alre­a­dy surveyed field bou­nda­ry notified under the TN Forest Act.

“There is no vested right for the petitioner, and even assuming that certain lease rents were collected by the PWD, they had no authority to do so as the land has been notified as forest land.

The petitioner is attempting to take advantage of the dispute between two departments, said to have been cau­­s­ed mainly at the inst­an­ce of the Tahsildar, Ero­de,” the­ bench added.