Residents’ association moves Madras High Court over encroachments

Chennai: A residents’ association has approached the Madras high court to direct authorities to prevent and remove encroachments made on the land earmarked for construction of shops in Kolathur under the Senthil Nagar Kolathur layout approval. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam before whom the public interest litigation filed by the Senthil Nagar Residents’ Welfare Association came up for hearing, listed it for compliance on June 26. According to the petitioner, originally, S. P. Pallaniappan had gifted some land earmarked for public purpose in his layout in favour of the Kolathur panchayat.

Later, when the panchayat was merged with Chennai corporation, the land was transferred to the Chennai corporation. This land had been earmarked for the construction of a shopping complex. While so, S. Jayanthi, the owner of an adjacent plot, along with some unauthorised persons, had encroached the land by fencing it and stored building materials there. However, after the association sent a representation to the Chennai corporation to take action against the encroachment, the building materials were removed.

In January 2013, the encroachers erected a board on the land stating that Shri Renuka Constructions was going to construct apartments on it. Though the petitioner made several representations to various authorities including the Mayor to cancel the building approval and stop construction, no action was taken to safeguard the corporation land. Hence, the petitioner had filed the present petition.