Unapproved layouts: HC declines to grant relief to realtors

: Declining to grant relief to realtors, who sought relaxation of its earlier order banning registration of plots and buildings whose layouts have not been approved, the Madras High Court today directed the government and petitioners to categorise lands for which registration was being sought.
On September 8, while hearing a PIL, the high court had banned registration of plots and houses, whose layout had not been approved, and conversion of agricultural land for non-farming purposes in an unplanned manner in Tamil Nadu.
Hearing a batch of 30 impleading petitions seeking relaxation, the court today said the question of modifying its September 8 order or lifting it would be considered only after categorisation of land was done and a report submitted to it.

The court posted the matter for further hearing on November 16.
During today's hearing, a real estate owners association from Tiruchirapalli submitted that the court order had halted the entire real estate activity, resulting in huge losses.
When some counsel submitted that types of registration like those by individuals for gift deeds could be considered, the court said they could file separate writ petitions.

Another counsel claimed Tamil Nadu had lost Rs 274 crore since registration had come to a halt, following which the Chief Justice drew an analogy of smuggling, saying that merely because it involved several hundred crores of rupees, it could not be permitted.

"Don't use these types of pressure tactics. We will not succumb to such pressure. We know pretty well why this is done. Don't say that the registrations were stopped because of our order."
There was no impediment in case agricultural land was sought to be transferred in the same category with an undertaking to use it as such, the court said.
"There may be similar other cases and those various applicants who seek to be impleaded, after some discussion, agree that they categorise these registrations, so that specific orders may be obtained qua areas of concern which are unnecessarily not being registered."

The government submitted a copy of the October 20 Government Order (GO) issued by the Commercial Taxes and Registration Department, which amended the Section 22-A of the Registration (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2008.
This provision would prevent registration of land holdings converted by the planning authorities for housing purposes without developing the plots. However, holdings already converted and registered were excluded from the purview of the new GO, the government said.