Hand over Rly premises for coach terminal, HC tells school

The Madras High Court has directed a school here to vacate premises and hand over possession to the Railways, which owned the land, before April 30, 2019 to carry out coaching terminal work, and made it clear that no further extension of time would be given.

Disposing of an appeal filed by the school against a single judge order, directing it to vacate the premises, a division bench comprising justices R Subbiah and P D Audikesavulu said the Railways, could, meanwhile, start preliminary work for its project.

"It is open to the Railways to commence other preliminary works to give effect to the coaching terminal works. It is made clear that no further extension of time will be granted to the appellant School beyond 30 April 2019."

Christ King Middle School functioning from a railway owned premises at Tambaram here since 1935, filed an appeal against the December 15 2017 order of Justice S Vaidyanathan directing it to handover possession to railways.

 

The single judge had directed the school to move out immediately after the end of the academic year (2017-18), failing which Rs two lakh as costs would be imposed on it.

Justice Vaidyanathan's order came on the school's petition challenging a 2010 eviction order of Principal Chief Engineer, Southern Railway.

The division bench, hearing the appeal, set aside the observations of the single judge holding the school as "unauthorised occupant" since it was put in possession of the land in 1935 and had also sought nod of the authorities for putting up new construction in 1998.

The 43,680 sq ft land was given by railways on an annual rent of Re one under an agreement for establishing a middle school that now has 1,500 children, 37 teachers and seven non-teaching staff on its rolls.

The railways had contended that the land was urgently required for a coaching terminal at Tambaram as the terminals at Egmore and Central are saturated.

The requirement of the land under occupation of the school was therefore for public utility development, which would outweigh the requirement of the school, it said.