Madras High court orders state to evict temple land encroacher at once
The court further directed Collector, RDO and tahsildar to evict the encroacher and submit a compliance report before the court.
Chennai:The authorities of the ancient Pazhandi Amman temple here who have been waging a protracted legal battle for nearly a decade are hopeful of getting back the temple lands from an encroacher.
The Kancheepuram district collector, revenue divisional officer, Tambaram, and tahsildar, Alandur, have been directed by Madras high court to evict the encroacher and hand over the land to the temple by September14.
It was a classic case of "abuse of process of law" that had stalled the Pazhandi Amman temple authorities from reclaiming the land situated right in front of the temple in Adambakkam. Finally justice prevailed. V. Arulrajan, who had encroached upon the land of the temple, situated close to the St Thomas Mount Railway station, had changed gears preventing the officials from evicting him.
When attempt was first made to evict the encroacher the latter took the matter to the court and since 2006, though the verdict at various courts have been in favour of the temple, the trustees could not gain control of the land.
A.T. Subbarayan, the hereditary trustee who has been waging the legal battle, moved Madras high court seeking a direction to the tahsildar to evict the encroacher who had occupied 10 cents of the temple lands. After hearing the arguments and perusing the materials placed before the court, the bench comprising Justice M. Sathyanarayanan and Justice N. Seshasayee on Aug. 29, observed that the Arulrajan had “abused the process of law” and that he had “changed gears and very cleverly moved the civil court.”
“Mere pendency of the said suits would not create any impediment on the part of the official respondents herein to initiate appropriate proceedings to evict the encroacher and hand over the possession of the property to the temple,” they observed and held that suits filed by Arulrajan in 2012 and 2014 prime facie appears to be a abuse of process of law.
The court further directed Collector, RDO and tahsildar to evict the encroacher and submit a compliance report before the court by September 14.
