The Madras High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the Tamil Nadu government, Chennai Metro Rail Ltd and Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS) on a petition seeking to restrain the Metro Rail from entering 9.912 acres of land and premises of the Institute of Poultry Production Management (IPPM) at Nandanam.
A Division Bench comprising Justices P. Jothimani and K.B.K. Vasuki also posted the matter to January 3, for further hearing the petition filed by Chennai-based advocate B. Ramesh Babu.
Mr. Babu said that only a few days were left for the Metro Rail to enter the premises since it had already asked the TANUVAS to hand over the land before December 30, 2010.
He said the Metro Rail had taken advantage of the order issued by the Secretary, Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Department of the State government.
Describing as “ill-conceived idea” the decision of the State government to hand over the land, he said it would completely destroy rare varieties of birds maintained by the TANUVAS for research purposes, scientific hi-tech plants, incubators, birds that were in hatchery and the research going on for years. He said if the pending research was disturbed, it would mean beginning from scratch and that would take several decades for scientific results.
Stating that handing over the land was a Himalayan task, he said in a very short time the study of the students of various courses should be rearranged.
The germplasms of several lakhs of chickens, Japanese quails, thousands of turkey and guinea fowls, variety of birds in hatchery, eggs in hi-tech incubators, several hundreds of spotted deer and rare birds habituating for several decades cannot be relocated.
Mr. Babu also argued that the order of the Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Department was illegal since the properties of the universities were not the properties of the State government.
He also alleged that the object of the railway station being constructed in those lands was for the exclusive benefit of certain groups of corporate offices, but not to the benefit of general public.
