The crackdown by the Madras High Court against unauthorised housing layouts in Tamil Nadu by banning registration of such properties has been extended to the Union territory of Puducherry.
On Tuesday, a day after the First Bench of Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice M. Sundar refused to relax the ban in Tamil Nadu passed an interim order restraining the District Registrar of Puducherry from registering unauthorised layouts.
The Bench passed the interim order on a plea moved by advocate ‘Elephant’ G. Rajendran seeking to extend the ban in Tamil Nadu to Puducherry.
The petitioner claimed that with the rapid conversion of agricultural land in the Union Territory, in three years the total agricultural land in the territory would be reduced to 20%.
Besides restraining the Puducherry government from giving approval for conversion of agricultural into residential layouts, the petitioner wanted the court to direct the District Registrar of the UT not to register documents of unapproved plots, layouts, and buildings constructed in violation of planning permission.
When the plea came up for hearing, the Government Advocate for Puducherry submitted that neither permission was granted for conversion of agriculture land in the recent past nor proposed to be approved till relevant rules came into force.
However, the Bench, after recording the submission said, “To avoid complications by registering such unauthorised layouts, and buildings constructed in violation of planning permission … the District Registrar is restrained from registering any such unapproved properties.”
The Bench then posted the plea to March 2 for further hearing.
