: The Madras High Court on Friday indicated that its earlier order prohibiting registration of unapproved plots converted as house-sites was not a blanket ban, but was limited to some categories of registration that were of concern to it.
When the matter came up before the First Bench, it was informed that registration was not taking place even in some categories that were not covered by the concern of the court. Therefore, it permitted counsel for petitioners who had approached it for relief to categorise their applications based on the nature of the land being registered. Once the categorisation was complete, the Bench said it would consider modifying or lifting its earlier order of September 8.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan, took note of Section 22-A of the Tamil Nadu Registration (Amendment) Act, 2008, notified on October 20, 2016. “It is fairly stated with this provision coming into force, sub-section (2) would prevent registration of instruments of lands converted as house sites without [approval of] development of such land from planning authorities concerned. However, the difference is that the proviso excludes the house sites which were already registered as such.” The Bench gave an instance of a category of registration for which there can be no impediment: agricultural land sought to be transferred as agricultural land, with an undertaking to use it as such. There might be other similar cases. Those applicants seeking to be impleaded, after some discussion, agreed that they would categorise these registrations, so that specific orders may be obtained regarding instruments that were unnecessarily not being registered.
Once the categorisation was done, the Bench said it would examine those categories that might still require adjudication with reference to the government’s policy. After counsel stated that a two-week period would be sufficient for the categorisation to be worked out, the Bench adjourned the hearing to November 16 with the observation that it would consider modifying or lifting its earlier order after the categorisation was submitted to the court.
