Murasoli Trust case | Madras High Court orders notice to National Commission for Scheduled Castes

Madras High Court orders notice to NCSC on appeal against dismissal of writ petition regarding Panchami land possession.

The Madras High Court on Monday ordered notice to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) on a writ appeal preferred by Murasoli Trust against the dismissal of its writ petition to forbear the commission from inquiring into a complaint of alleged possession of Panchami land.

Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy entertained the appeal after being prima facie convinced with the submissions of Senior Counsel P. Wilson that the NCSC had no authority, under its rules of procedure, to inquire into a complaint related to the title of a property.

When Additional Solicitor General AR.L. Sundaresan representing the NCSC and senior counsel S. Ravi, representing the complainant R. Srinivasan of BJP, said, they were confident of convincing the court otherwise, the judges asked them to submit all authorities to be relied upon by them by March 11.

The ASG also told the court that he would instruct the NCSC to not precipitate the issue until the next hearing of the case. When Mr. Wilson insisted on an interim stay against the inquiry, the Chief Justice told him that the word of the ASG was as good as an interim order passed by the court.

The appeal had been preferred against Justice S.M. Subramaniam’s January 10, 2024 refusal to issue a writ of prohibition restraining the NCSC from inquiring into the complaint of the trust allegedly being in possession of 12 grounds of Panchami land, meant for the Scheduled Castes, in Chennai.

The judge had dismissed the writ petition filed in 2020 and held that “an investigation and an inquiry by the commission is warranted for the purpose of ascertaining the truth regarding the character of the land in order to safeguard and protect the interest of the scheduled caste members.”

However, in its grounds of appeal, the trust contended that the Rules of Procedure for the NCSC do not empower it to entertain complaints related to the title of a property. It claimed that the only remedy available to the complainant was to file a civil suit before a competent court.