HC declines to stay order on registration of unapproved plots

CHENNAI: The sale of plots in unapproved layouts is likely to remain in deep freeze for some more time, as the Madras high court has declined to relax its September 9 order imposing a blanket ban on their registration in Tamil Nadu.

The first bench of Chief Justice

Sanjay Kishan Kaul

and

Justice M Sundar

also refused to form a committee comprising retired judges to look into the issue, saying, "we are against the system of parallel committee, and once the regulations are framed it would be placed in the public domain before it is finalised." The bench also urged the new chief secretary of Tamil Nadu to bestow her attention on the issue, and said: "Conversion of agricultural lands for non-agricultural use in an unplanned manner should be undone."

The matter has been adjourned to January 30 for further hearing. Tamil Nadu government sought some more time to frame rules to regulate conversion of agricultural lands into residential layouts. After advocate-general

R Muthukumaraswamy

sought two more weeks saying the process had reached its final stages, the judges obliged, but not without asking whether the delay was "political or administrative".