The Madras High Court has directed the State government to review all old assignment of government lands to private educational institutions as well as other entities in the State and take steps to retrieve the properties if such assignments were found to be irregular.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam directed the Revenue Secretary to issue suitable instructions to all Collectors in the State to verify and review the assignment of government lands to private bodies and submit reports to the government based on which action could be initiated to retrieve the lands.
The order was passed while rejecting a writ petition filed by Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in 2005 seeking a direction to the State government to assign 41.92 acres of government poromboke land at Katpadi village in Vellore district in favour of the institution on payment of a reasonable consideration. Though the institution claimed that it was in occupation of the poromboke land, as well as other parcels of lands in its immediate vicinity, since its inception as Vellore Engineering College in 1984, the government refused to assign the property on the ground that it was required for construction of a government sports complex.
Additional Advocate General S.R. Rajagopal brought it to the notice of the court that the entire 41.92 acres of land had already been allotted to Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) for constructing a sports complex and encouraging the youngsters in the vicinity to participate in various sporting activities. The court was told that the government had already assigned 98.80 acres of government land to the deemed to be university in 1985.
However, the institute assailed the reasons cited by the government and claimed that the sports complex would not serve any purpose since it would be situated about eight kilometres away from Vellore town.
It claimed that people would not prefer to travel such a long distance and hence it would be prudent to handover the lands to the petitioner institution, which was situated hardly 60 feet away from the poromboke lands.