High Court reserves verdict on pleas to preserve waterbodies spread across the State
The Hindu
‘Action must be taken against officials if encroachments crop up after eviction’
The Madras High Court on Thursday reserved verdict on a batch of public interest litigation petitions that complained of encroachment of various waterbodies across the State. The judgment was deferred after the State Government submitted details of all waterbodies and rough data of the indicative extent of encroachments upon them.
Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu told Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram and Additional Advocate General J. Ravindran that after having identified all the waterbodies in the State, the government must commence the next exercise of evicting the encroachers and restoring the waterbodies. They said after the waterbodies were cleared of encroachments, the onus of keeping them safe and free of encroachments in the future should be on the officials concerned.
If encroachments crop up again, those responsible would be subjected to disciplinary proceedings and even suspended from service, if necessary.