Chennai: “In the state of Tamil Nadu, there is more than one document for a particular property duly shown as registered. Unless there is collusion between the land grabbers and the persons in the office of the sub-registrar including the sub-registrar and document writer in and around the sub-registrar office, these fraudulent documents cannot be created”, said the Madras high court.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan made the above observation while directing the authorities to place a tahsildar under suspension and take disciplinary action against him for issuing patta, in spite of his instructions from his superior authorities, not to issue patta to a vacant land in Velacherry, which is earmarked as community hall by the Chennai corporation.
The judge dismissed the petitions from N. Raman and S.V.N. Natarajan. While Raman challenged an order of the authorities rejecting his request for the grant of planning permission, Natarajan sought a direction to the authorities not to interfere with his peaceful possession of the property in Velachery.
The judge said it was clear that the petitioners were trying to usurp the properties in question meant for the Community Hall. This court will not grant the relief sought for by the petitioners in both the petitions. Merely because the petitioner paid the statutory taxes for years, and that the properties in question were kept as vacant site, it cannot be a ground to grant the relief sought for by the petitioners. “It is to be noted that the officials of the corporation used to receive any amount tendered for any site without verifying the records. This is one such case. Moreover, merely because the amount has been paid to the corporation or authorities concerned in respect of the vacant site, the same will not validate the illegal regularisation or illegal construction. This is one way of duping the government and trying to usurp the property”, the judge added.
The judge said in this case, as the tahsildar concerned of the Velachery taluk who issued patta in respect of the property of the petitioner (Raman), in spite of instructions from his superior authority, not to issue patta, shall be placed under suspension and disciplinary action shall be taken against him, which shall be proceeded on day to day basis.
The authority concerned shall preferably pass an order of dismissal from service against the said tahsildar, who was in charge at that relevant point of time and if the disciplinary authority was going to impose any other capital punishment less than the dismissal order, it was open for the authority to do so and the imposition of such major punishment shall be recorded in the service register of the Tahsildar and he was not entitled for any promotion and he shall be posted in any non-sensitive post, and if he was a direct recruit to any other post and promoted to the post of tahsildar, he shall be reverted back to the lowest post in which he was appointed and he will be paid salary applicable to the lowest post in which he was posted, the judge added.
