Lodge fresh land grab complaints against MP: HC to petitioners

The Madras High Court today asked three petitioners to lodge a fresh land grab complaint against AIADMK M P Thambidurai and his wife T Banumathi to the Commissioner of Police.
If such a complaint was lodged police should proceed in accordance with the recent Supreme Court order, which mandated police to register FIR, Justice K K Sasidharan said in his order on petitions filed by Uma Prasad, P G Saleem and Uma Ravi, who alleged that Thambidurai and his wife, who run an engineering college at Avadi on the suburbs, had purchased a vast stretch and had denied access to their lands at the site.

Citing the Supreme Court ruling that registration of FIR was mandatory under Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code if the information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence was given in writing, the judge said, adding that no preliminary inquiry was required in such a situation.
The petitioners said they were unable to enter their property because the MP's family had "blocked the way and grabbed the pathway" as they did not agree to sell their lands in view of the "paltry sum offered" by Thambidurai.
The petition was filed after the police refused to receive the complaint or register an FIR against an MP of the state's ruling party, they said.

Bhanumathi in her counter contended that the petitioners had purchased the property with full knowledge that it was a wet land surrounded by lands belonging to the college. "They have no proper approach road or common pathway and in spite of that they purchased the land," she said.
When the matter came up for hearing On August 6 last year before Justice Sasidharan, counsel for Thambidurai informed the court that the MP was prepared to execute necessary documents giving access to the petitioners to reach their property. The court too recorded the undertaking.
Pointing out that their complaints of land grabbing had not been entertained by police, the court has to take action in terms of the apex court judgment immediately, the judge said.