Madras High Court asks Tamil Nadu to come up with comprehensive land policy

Chennai: Refusing to relax its order of blanket ban on registration of unapproved layouts passed on September 9 last year, the Madras high court has directed the state government to come up with a comprehensive policy. When a batch of PILs from activists and a bunch of impleading petitions filed by various developers and individuals seeking relaxation to the blanket order came up before the first bench comprising acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G. Ramesh and Justice R. Mahadevan, the bench has also directed the government to ensure that people would not be affected by the policy with regard to the conversion of agricultural lands into layouts.

Additional Advocate General Ayyadurai submitted that the government has proposed to categorise the lands into four divisions - recognised one, unrecognised one, wetlands and dry lands.

The bench directed AAG to take immediate policy decision, keeping in view of the public and to come up with a solution at an early date. The bench posted the matter for further hearing to March 28, 2017. On September 9, 2016, Madras high court stayed all the registrations of unapproved layouts.