Plea to distribute land to landless

CHENNAI: A PIL petition has been filed in the Madras High Court for a direction to the State government to return the land acquired under the Land Reforms Act for distributing to the landless poor, but being used for some other purposes.

A division bench of Justices S Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad, before which the PIL from one M Narendran came up for hearing on Monday, posted it for June 4 for filing the documents supporting the facts.

According to the petitioner, a land measuring 95.74 acre in Kilambakkam in Kanchopuram district belonged to Kasturi Estate. It was notified as surplus land and was acquired for a public purpose under section 18 (1) of the TN Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act on August 10, 1979. And they were assigned to several beneficiaries under the TN (Disposal of Surplus Lands) Rules, in 1998. However, the lands were resumed and the assignments to the beneficiaries were cancelled stating that the same was required for another public purpose, in 2009.

One of the beneficiaries took the matter to Supreme Court, which had granted a stay in respect of her apportioned land, which is in force till date. While so, the balance land was assigned for construction of a bus stand, which is the subject matter of challenge in the PIL.The petitioner wanted the government to distribute the land to the eligible persons.