High Court: Table report on action taken to retrieve Tirusulam temple lands

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and PD Audikesavalu held that the government’s report should also indicate how the land was given to the third party. 

“The report should indicate how and in what circumstances a part of the land belonging to the temple may have been let out to a third party,” the bench held.

Government pleader P Muthukumar submitted that of the 83.26 acres of land that belongs to the temple, about 21 acres have been leased to several people. The occupants of the 21 acres were regularly paying rent to HR&CE Department, he said, and admitted that there were encroachments on the remaining land measuring approximately 62 acres.

“Action was initiated against the encroachers since they had purported to rely on forged and fabricated documents,” the government advocate submitted. To this, the bench observed that it did not seem that encroachers have been removed.

The bench directed the District Collector to cooperate with the HR&CE and Revenue departments to measure the land owned by the Trisoolanathar temple to enable the authorities to file a report.

The court then granted six weeks to submit the report and posted the matter to November 29.

“The government should file a report when the matter appears next, six weeks hence, as to the action taken to remove the encroachers,” it directed.

S Xavier Felix of Chennai had moved the plea before the HC stating that though many people have illegally occupied the land belonging to Trisoolanathar temple, neither the HR&CE Department nor the district administration took any steps to evict them.

“As the temple lands have been encroached by several people, the State government needs to take action for evicting them. However, the government has not taken initiatives to recover the temple land,” the petitioner submitted.