Tondiarpet temple land encroached? HC orders survey

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court had ordered the Tahsildar, Tondiarpet Taluk to conduct a survey on Mannadi Arulmigu Venugopala Krishnaswamy temple’s land in Tondiarpet to ascertain whether the said land was under encroachment.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the orders on disposing of a petition filed by A Radhakrishnan, a resident of Salem.

The petitioner sought a direction to the Revenue Department to conduct a survey and to secure and safeguard the land of HR and CE’s Venugopala Krishnaswamy Temple extent of 14 ares of land (1400 square feet) at Velayutham Pandi Street, Tondairpet, Chennai.

“The revenue records have clearly disclosed that the above-said properties belong to the said temple. However, the records maintained by the temple have not disclosed those properties in the register,” the petitioner added.

He further said that his representations to the HR and CE officials at various levels to recover the land had gone in vain.

Recording the submissions, the CJ MN Bhandari passed a direction to the Tahsildar to survey the lands of the temple within two months. “In case any encroachment is reported, the HR & CE Department would proceed to remove the encroachment by taking the process, as provided under the provisions of the HR and CE Act, 1959,” the CJ ruled.

The bench passed this order after hearing the submissions of the special government pleader NRR Arun Natarajan stating that steps have been taken and a request has been made to the Tahsildar to conduct a survey of the land in question.

“If the survey results would show encroachment on the land, action would be taken by the department under the provisions of the TN HR and CE Act, 1959,” the special GP submitted.