A division bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Nisha Banu of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday directed the part of vacant land in Government Higher Secondary School, Othakadai near here, on which revenue authorities had planned to build the Revenue Divisional Office be restored to the school.
The petitioner, Shanta Moorthy, a member of the Parent-Teachers’ Association of the school, said revenue officials had planned to utilise the vacant land at the school for constructing a building for Revenue Divisional Office and residential quarters at Ulaganeri.
The petitioner said after removing the encroachments on the school land on the directions of the court, the officials planned to construct the building and had issued notice for tenders and received bids.
A division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and Abdul Quddhose had earlier directed that no action be taken on the bids received for the construction of the building and they should not be opened till further orders.
The Revenue department, in its counter filed earlier, said that the State, being the owner of the land, was only utilising a part of the plot for the purpose of constructing an office building and quarters and the move would protect the school from any encroachment and trespass.
The petitioner had also filed a contempt petition against the respondents saying that the directions of the court were being violated. He said that the plot belonging to the school was needed for infrastructure development.