Madras High Court flays govt. officials over attempt to take possession of Madras Race Club lands without notice

Madras High Court criticizes State officials for hasty actions on Madras Race Club lands, emphasizing due process of law.

The Madras High Court on Monday came down heavily on the State government officials for attempting to take possession of Madras Race Club (MRC) lands at Guindy in Chennai within two days after issuing a Government Order (G.O.) on September 6 for premature termination of the 99-year-long lease granted to the club in 1946 with respect to 160.80 acres.

Second Division Bench of Justices S.S. Sundar and K. Rajasekar disapproved of the way in which the G.O. had been worded for terminating the lease as well as taking possession of the property forthwith. The senior judge in the Bench said the act of the officials in descending on MRC premises with a battallion of police personnel on Monday, was “illegal and high-handed”.

The observations were made after senior counsel A.L. Somayaji, assisted by Vaibhav R. Venkatesh, told the court that the officials had misconstrued an interim order passed by the Division Bench on September 4 in a pending writ appeal, related to rental arrears, and gone about sealing the club premises without any consideration even to the horses that had to be fed regularly.

On his part, Advocate General P.S. Raman conceded that the G.O. had not been worded properly. He brought to the notice of the Division Bench a 1996 Supreme Court verdict in Anamallai Club’s case wherein in it was held that “the government is entitled to resume possession but resumption of possession does not mean unilaterally taking the possession without recourse to law”.

Since the apex court had insisted upon issuing notice and granting reasonable time to the lessee to vacate the property, the A-G submitted that separate proceedings would be issued for terminating the lease granted to MRC and also to take possession of the lands after providing reasonable time to vacate. He urged the Division Bench to record his submissions and the judges did so.

When Mr. Somayaji sought liberty to challenge the G.O. as well as the consequential proceedings, the Division Bench made it clear that it would always be open to MRC to challenge them in accordance with law. The orders were passed after taking up the writ appeal for hearing following an urgent mention made by Mr. Venkatesh due to the coercive action of sealing the club premises.

The advocate told the court that the revenue officials had taken undue advantage of the September 4 interim order in which it was clarified that maintenance of status quo was only with respect to the issue of rental arrears and that the State government could terminate the lease if it was permissible by law. He said the order had been misconstrued to the extent of taking possession without notice.