The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment officials on Friday retrieved 8.20 acres of land belonging to Swami Nellaiyappar Temple for non-payment of lease amount to the tune of ₹45.45 lakh from farmers to whom the cultivable wetlands had been leased out.
As the farmers, who had taken on lease the cultivable lands belonging to Swami Nellaiyappar Temple, had failed to pay even the relatively small lease amount for several years, the Hindu Religious Charitable Endowment authorities approached the High Court which ordered the petitioners to retrieve the temple land from the defaulters.
Of the 130 acres of wetlands of Swami Nellaiyappar Temple in Sernthimangalam village, 19 farmers cultivating crop on 8.20 acres did not pay the accumulated lease amount of ₹ 45.45 lakh for several years. When the HR and CE officials, backed by the policemen, went to Sernthimangalam on Friday to take the land under their custody, the defaulting farmers blocked the traffic on Sernthimangalam road saying that they could not cultivate any crop for the past several years due to failure of monsoon. As a result, they could not pay the lease amount. Some of them picked-up heated argument with the HR and CE officials even as the police, led by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Tirunelveli, Sathish Kumar, were present.
When the HR and CE officials, quoting revenue records disproved their claim that they were unable to cultivate any crop, they became silent and the officials took the land under their custody.
