Madras High Court sets at naught, efforts to claim ownership over land worth ₹144 crore in Perumbakkam, Chennai

Madras High Court nullifies deceased ex-serviceman's family's claim to ₹144 crore land in Chennai due to illegal assignment.

The Madras High Court on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, set at naught the efforts taken by a deceased ex-serviceman’s family to claim ownership over five acres of land worth ₹144 crore. The property was part of 117.27 acres allotted to the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (previously Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board) for construction of residential tenements at Perumbakkam in Chennai.

A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and C. Kumarappan allowed a writ appeal filed by the State government in 2021 and set aside a single judge’s March 17, 2021 order directing the government to issue a patta (revenue document related to land ownership) to the wife and five children of V. Doss Peck, a former Navy man who was assigned the government land in 1966 for cultivation.

The Bench held that the 1966 assignment was illegal since a ban had been imposed in 1962 against assignment of government lands in Chennai city and in Chengalpattu district. Further, the assignment order had required the ex-serviceman to expend a reasonable amount of money to make the land fit for cultivation, and the Revenue Standing Order required him to cultivate it within three years of assignment.

However, there was no material on record to prove whether the assignee had spent money to make the land fit for cultivation and whether he was cultivating it continuously. It was only because the land had remained vacant for several years that the government had granted the ‘enter upon’ permission to the Board in 2007 for construction of residential tenements for more than 20,000 people, the Bench said.

It also pointed out that there was no possibility of the property being cultivated anymore since Perumbakkam was now a locality very close to the Rajiv Gandhi Information Technology Expressway (previously Old Mahabalipuram Road or OMR ) dotted with multiple IT companies and high-rise residential apartments, thereby increasing the present market value of the five-acre plot of land to a whopping ₹144 crore.