Actor Pooja Bhatt’s land | Madras High Court asks Nilgiris administration for status report on resuming property

Madras HC calls for status report from Nilgiris district admin on steps to resume 26.12 cents of land in Jagadha village from Pooja Bhatt. Conflicting claims made by State Govt Pleader & Bhatt's counsel. HC orders status report & status quo till next hearing. Land assigned to SC resident in 1978 with condition of no alienation for 10 yrs. Land changed hands & Bhatt bought part in 1999. Reddy's mother bought 27 cents in 1999 & assigned 13.84 to him in 2010. Tahsildar passed order for resumption in 2016. Bhatt & others filed writ petitions in 2017. HC dismissed all writs this year & directed Collector to resume similar properties.

The Madras High Court has called for a status report from the Nilgiris district administration with respect to the steps initiated by it to resume 26.12 cents of land in Jagadha village, Kotagiri Taluk from film producer and actor Pooja Bhatt.

Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy called for the status report due to conflicting claims made by State Government Pleader (SGP) P. Muthukumar and Ms. Bhatt’s counsel Karthik Seshadri with respect to the resumption.

While the SGP claimed the land had been resumed by the Kotagiri Taluk Tahsildar from the actor, the latter’s counsel stoutly denied the claim and contended that she continued to be in possession and enjoyment of the property.

After recording their submissions, the judges called for a status report from the official respondents by November 8, and ordered that officers and the actor must maintain status quo, as on date, until the next date of hearing of the case.

The judges passed similar orders on yet another writ appeal filed by adjoining land owner Pingle Ramesh Reddy represented by senior counsel Abdul Saleem. They further ordered the tagging of all connected appeals to be heard together next week.

The issue relates to one acre of government land assigned to Scheduled Caste resident P. Kuppan (since dead), under the category of ‘landless poor’, for cultivation on August 9, 1978. The assignment condition mandated that he not alienate the land for 10 years.

However, officials claimed that in violation of the condition, Kuppan executed a power of attorney in favour of an individual C.O. Subramani in 1986 and the latter used it to sell the land to another individual, C.O. Ramasamy in October 1988. Thereafter, the land changed hands and Ms. Bhatt bought part of it in 1999.