Chennai, Feb 7 (PTI) The first bench of the Madras High Court has directed the authorities concerned not to convert the meikkal poramboke and Mandaiveli lands in Tamil Nadu for regularisation of encroachment.

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The court was disposing of a PIL petition from Raja seeking a direction to the authorities concerned to remove the encroachments on meikaal poramboke and Mandaiveli lands (grazing lands) throughout the state and to restrain them from converting the said lands for granting patta pursuant to a GO dated August 30, 2019 of the Revenue and Disaster Management department.

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"For other purposes also, conversion of land cannot be permitted unless an equivalent area is identified and earmarked for such purpose," the bench of Acting Chief M N Bhandari and Justice P D Audikesavalu said recently.

Earlier, the Additional Advocate-General submitted that Meikaal poramboke and Mandaiveli lands can be converted after allocation of equivalent area for grazing purposes. Hence, the prayer was not sustainable, he added.

The bench noted that admittedly the Meikaal poramboke and Mandaiveli lands were earmarked for grazing cattle. Hence, whenever they were to be converted, equivalent land had to be allocated for the said purpose. The provision regarding conversion was being misused and therefore, the Apex Court in September 2021, while dealing with unauthorised encroachment on gauchar land (grazing land) had held that the grazing land should be used only for the purpose for which it was permitted and no encroachment on such land was permissible. PTI CORR SA

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)