HC declines to stay order against registration of plots

Chennai, Sep 22: The Madras High Court today refused to stay its order directing the authorities not to register properties or plots in unauthorised layouts.

Rejecting the interim prayer for the stay made by All India Real Estate Businessmen Welfare Association, a bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan, however, allowed to hear the petition, along with the PIL on which the earlier order was passed.

On September 9, the bench had restrained the Inspector General, Registration from registering unauthorised plots and had also directed the officer to instruct all the officials of his department throughout the state in this regard. The interim order was passed on a PIL filed by advocate 'Elephant' K Rajendran, seeking to restrain the authorities concerned from giving approval or permission to convert agricultural land into layouts and construct apartments or buildings on them.

Challenging the order, the petitioner association submitted that its members were making layouts only on dry lands and selling them to aspirants. It contended that there was no provision in the Tamil Nadu Registration Act to refuse registration of documents on any ground.

The counsel for the association pointed out that the insertion of section 22A to the Act in 1994, which stipulated certain terms and conditions for registration of properties, had already been set aside by a division bench of the High Court and upheld by the Supreme Court.

He also submitted that the association members had developed a number of layouts and sold a substantial number of plots. Though they had received advances from the prospective purchasers for the remaining plots, because of the September 9 court order, the sale could not be effected.

Having invested a substantial amount, the petitioners were not able to get back their investments, if not the profit. If the petitioner association was not impleaded as a party-respondent in the PIL filed by advocate 'Elephant' K Rajendran, it would cause an irreparable loss and damage to them, he contended.

PTI