Eviction of NGO from Chennai Corporation building deferred

CHENNAI: Providing a brief respite to Udavum Karangal, a social service organisation, more particularly providing relief to the orphans, elderly people and the mentally ill, the Madras High Court has deferred the process of evicting it from the building owned by the Chennai Corporation in Maduravoyal.

According to the petitioner, the organisation purchased land in Maduravoyal in 1993. Thereafter, it put up a building for running a psychiatric nursing home at the cost of `75.50 lakh, in which mentally ill persons had been housed since 1993. 

However, Tiruvallur Collector called upon the organisation suddenly to vacate and deliver vacant possession of the said land on the pretext that it encroached upon the banks of the Cooum river. Recording the submissions, the bench said that taking into consideration the facts and circumstances of the claim projected by the petitioner and without going into the merits of the claim, it was directing the Collector to consider petitioner’s representation in four weeks and afford an opportunity of personal hearing to him and thereafter, consider and dispose of the representation on merits and in accordance with law within a further period of 12 weeks thereafter and communicate the decision taken to the petitioner.