The district administration and the police stood embarrassed on Thursday when a private land owner, armed with court decree, went to take possession of 1,180 sq. ft. area in East Coast Road (ECR) near here after waging 13-year long legal battle to get compensation for the land.
Mr V. Vijayan of Omsakthi Nagar had been fighting his case at the District Munsiff Court here ever since the government, instead of taking over 303 sq. ft. area for the ECR, took over his entire 1,483 sq. ft. area but failed to pay compensation for the balance of 1,180 sq. ft. area.
After several adjournments during the last three years, the District Munsiff K. S .Rajesh Kumar passed the final delivery order on September 17 directing the authorities to remove the 1,180 sq ft area from the ECR and hand over the same to the plaintiff.
Mr. Vijayan, accompanied by his counsel B. Sundarajan and court staff, went to take possession of portion of his land at the ECR at Madakottan when revenue and police officials requested him not to proceed with the order as traffic would go haywire if the portion of the road was closed.
A police team, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police Natarajan, trainee DSP Gokulakrishnan and Kenikarai Inspector Kalai Arasan persuaded the land owner not to be haste. Local Tahsildar Santhi pointed out that the government had passed an order on this issue. Officials gave a written undertaking that the compensation of ₹3.81 lakh would be given in 10 days. The land owner agreed to wait till then.
The Munsiff court, in its order dated October 10, 2014, had directed the government to hand him over the property but it failed to implement the order. After Mr. Vijayan filed an execution petition in April, 2015, the government had been seeking adjournments till the judge gave the final delivery order, his counsel said.