CHENNAI (INDIA): The Madras High Court was informed that as many as 9,760 unapproved plots and house sites converted from agricultural land had been registered in Tamil Nadu from September 9, 2016 till March 28 despite a blanket ban.
Of the 9,760 unapproved plots, Vellore district topped the list with 2,581 registrations. Madurai came next with 2,434 while Chennai accounted for 1,412.
In an affidavit, the Inspector General of Registration submitted that the total number of documents registered after the blanket order not to register any unapproved plots by the high court on September 9, 2016 till March 28 in all the 578 sub-registrar offices was 8,81,953.
Of these, the number of sale deeds registered was 2,39,922.
A batch of petitions against conversion of agricultural land into housing plots came up before the First Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar, which sat in the summer vacation court today.
The bench after hearing elaborate arguments from advocates ‘Elephant’ Rajendran and VBR Menon, who are also petitioners in the case, directed Additional Advocate General Ayyadurai to submit a copy of the notification on regularisation of such plots.
On March 28, the First Bench headed by the then Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh modified the blanket ban on registration, passed on September 9, 2016.
It had said that transfer of ownership of already registered unapproved properties, could be permitted, subject to the final outcome of the PIL.
On April 21, the court directed the authorities to furnish details of the properties registered illegally from September 9 till March 28, 2017 and had posted the matter for hearing today.
This direction followed an allegation from the petitioners that Registrars in connivance with influential politicians and realtors, had registered documents numbering about four lakh illegally from September 9 last year.
The bench then posted the matter for further hearing to May 12.