The Madras High Court Bench here has thwarted an attempt made by a woman to claim ownership over 2.47 acres of land acquired by the State government from her father-in-law way back in 1964 for establishing National Institute of Technology (then known as Regional Engineering College) in Tiruchi.
Dismissing a writ petition filed by Gnanamary, a Division Bench of Justices Nooty Ramamohana Rao and S.S. Sundar said the petitioner could not be permitted to be unjustly enriched when her father-in-law, the original owner of the property, had accepted the compensation awarded for acquisition of the property about five decades ago.
The Bench also imposed a cost of Rs. 1,000 on the petitioner for filing the writ petition by suppressing crucial information such as the dismissal of a civil suit filed by her before a lower in court in Tiruchi in 2011 since she failed to prove continuous possession of the property as well as another attempt made by her this year to file one more civil suit.
Details of the civil suits filed earlier were revealed only after the judges found that some of the documents submitted by the writ petitioner in support of her case contained the seal of the District Munsif Court in Tiruchi. When confronted with the materials, the petitioner filed an additional affidavit and sought unconditional apology. Further, pointing out that the acquired land in question was not used for the NIT and instead used for an industrial estate at Thuvakudi and transferred to Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation, the Bench said non-utilisation of the land for the intended purpose would not give a right to the petitioner to claim ownership.
SC judgement
The judges recalled that in a similar case, the Supreme Court had categorically held that lands acquired by the government for a public purpose could be used for another public purpose and therefore such acquired land vested in the government, free from all encumbrances, need not be reassigned or conveyed back to the original owner.
