Chennai: Over 100 owners of small plots of lands situated in Vilankurichi village in Coimbatore district, whose lands were originally sought to be acquired by authorities but the proceedings were later quashed by the court, have approached the Madras high court to punish the managing director of Tamil Nadu Housing Board for willfully disobeying the order of the court, which directed it to issue no objection certificate to the land owners.
When the contempt petition filed by D. Sampath Kumar and 107 others came up for hearing, Justice M.M. Sundresh posted it after two weeks, after government advocate took notice on behalf of TNHB.
Petitioner’s counsel K. Parameswari submitted that the petitioners have purchased house plots in Vilankurichi village, Vinayakapuram, coming under the Ganapathy neighbourhood scheme, Coimbatore.
Most of them had already constructed houses in their respective plots after obtaining planning approval from the respective statutory bodies.
The acquisition proceedings initiated by the government in 1992 had been quashed by Madras high court on November 10, 2000, Parameswari added.
Thereafter, when the petitioners approached the special tahsildar to issue no objection certificate to show that their lands were released from acquisition, there was no response from him.
However, subsequently they came to understand that the NOC have not been issued to them on the ground that the housing board headquarters alone can issue the NOC.
After sending several representations to the housing board, the petitioners approached Madras high court, which had on March 28, 2017 directed the board to issue NOC to the petitioners within eight weeks.
However, the board failed to comply with the direction of the court. Since the act of the housing board amounts to willful disobedience of the order of court, the petitioners have filed the current contempt petition, Parameswari added.
