Chennai: The V Additional Civil Court, Chennai, has restrained a person from constructing a house at Adyar on a piece of land belonging to Sri Arunachaleshwarar temple, Tiruvannamalai.
The petitioner, the temple executive officer, submitted that a portion of land located on Arunachalam II Street, Adyar, belonged to the shrine. The land measuring 1,800 sq. ft was leased out to M. Sivasamy. He was paying monthly rent to the temple authorities. However, after his demise in 1990, his son S. Ramana was irregular in paying the rent.
The temple authorities had given strict instructions to him to pay the monthly rent regularly. Even after several reminders, he defaulted. The arrears had piled up to Rs. 89,690. Meanwhile, when the temple authorities inspected the property in March last year, they found that Ramana was trying to put up a construction in the place,
Despite objections, he continued with the construction. Hence, a petition was filed before XV Assistant City Civil Court seeking an injunction to halt the illegal construction.
Denying all the allegations, Ramana said his father entered into a lease hold right from the previous lessee, Saraswathi, in 1982. Later, he put up a house using his funds by obtaining building permission from Chennai corporation in 1985. During his lifetime, he was paying lease rent to the temple every month.
Ramana and his family members were living in the house for 35 years. The house that was built in 1985, became dilapidated and the roof was leaking. Hence, the old house was demolished to make way for a new one.
On September 9, 2014, he submitted a letter to the temple seeking no objection certificate to reconstruct the house. Without according the NOC, the temple authorities filed a suit.
The XV Assistant City Civil Court on May 7 restrained Ramana from putting up a new construction in the place with a permanent injunction. Aggrieved, Ramana filed an appeal before V Additional Court, stating the order was against law. Dismissing the appeal, Judge S.Senthil Kumaresan, upheld the trial court order.
Ramana cannot be allowed to continue new construction till the disposal of suit and also not entitled for any permission to carry out repair and maintenance, he said.
