The Madras High Court Bench here has finally cleared the decks for the construction of a road overbridge (ROB) at Ramamurthy Road in Virudhunagar by closing a batch of writ petitions filed against acquisition of lands for the construction. Justice B. Rajendran closed the cases after recording the submission of Additional Advocate General K. Chellapandian that the State Highways Department had no intention to acquire properties of any of the writ petitioners who had approached the court.
“In view of the specific statement made by the AAG, nothing survives in all these writ petitions because… when the petitioners’ lands are not needed for the proposed construction of the road overbridge, the points which have been raised before the Court need not be gone into,” the judge said.
While some of the writ petitioners including N. Nagalingam Manthirisabai had challenged a notification issued on December 25, 2014 for acquisition of lands, a few others had sought to quash a Government Order issued on December 23, 2014 permitting the acquisition. Appearing for one of the petitioners, a senior counsel contended that the land owners would be put to irreparable loss if an ROB was constructed. He said the lands could be given to the State even free of cost if it decided to construct a Road Under Bridge (RUB) instead.
However, after recording the submission of the AAG, the judge said: “When their (petitioners) properties are not at all required, they will not be in any way hampered. Therefore, they cannot have any say in the matter of construction of the road overbridge.
“The government is at liberty to proceed with the road overbridge work in accordance with the rules and regulations and without acquiring the lands of the petitioners.”
