CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed the State to submit a status report on steps taken to retrieve the land from actor and film producer Pooja Bhatt, as the land was originally allocated to a scheduled caste resident.

The actor moved the Madras High Court (MHC) challenging the single judge order to retrieve the 26.12 cents of land in Jagadha village, Kotagiri Taluk.

The case was listed before the first division bench of the MHC comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy.

State Government Pleader (SGP) P Muthukumar contended that the land had been retrieved by the Kotagiri Taluk Tahsildar from the actor. However, the counsel Karthik Seshadiri appeared for the actor contended that the said land is still in the possession of the actor.

After the submission, the bench directed the Nilgiris district administration to submit a status report with respect to the steps initiated to retrieve the land from the actor and posted the matter on November 8.

The court also ordered to maintain the status quo until the next hearing of the case.

In 1978 the government assigned one acre of land, in Jagadha village, to a resident P Kuppan (deceased), who belongs to Scheduled Caste (SC) under the condition that he should not alienate the land. However, the actor bought a portion of the land, which is 26.12 cents.

Kotagiri Tahsildar issued a notice against the actor to hand over the land as it was allocated to an SC resident.