Chennai: Madras high court has disposed of as infructuous, a public interest litigation, which sought to restrain the Puducherry government from giving approval or building permission to convert the agricultural land into layouts.
The First Bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose disposed of the PIL filed by advocate Elephant G. Rajendran.
The bench said it was the case of the petitioner that agriculture in Puducherry was going from bad to worse. Failure of monsoon leads to shortage of paddy and starvation. While economic progress and development in the field of information technology may be necessary, at the same time, food production and agriculture has to be protected. There can be no doubt about the correctness of the aforesaid submission, the bench added. On the petition being moved, interim orders were passed from time to time.
On January 31, 2017, a division bench comprising the then Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M. Sundar restrained the district registrar, Puducherry, from registering any document or sale deed relating to unapproved layout plots, buildings and flats constructed in violation of planning permission. On January 31, 2017, while the petition was being heard, senior counsel for the Puducherry government submitted that no conversion of agricultural land had been granted in the recent past nor proposed to be approved till such time as the relevant rules came into force, the bench added.
The bench said senior counsel appearing for Puducherry government has drawn its attention to the Puducherry Real Estate (Regulation and Development) (General) Rules, 2017, Puducherry Real estate (Regulation and Development) (Agreement for Sale) Rules, 2017 and the Scheme for regularization of unapproved layout situated in the area lying outside the Comprehensive Development Plan area in Puducherry and Karaikal regions. In view of the framing of aforesaid rules and scheme, the petition has become infructuous. There is no challenge in the petition to the aforesaid rules and the scheme framed, bench said.
