Madras High Court bans registration of unauthorised plots Friday Oct 21,2016

The Madras High Court on Friday Oct 21,2016  issued an order banning registration of plots and houses in unapproved housing layouts as well as conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural use in an unplanned manner in Tamil Nadu. 

“We direct that no registering authority in the State shall register any sale deed in respect of any plot in unauthorised layout or any flat/ building constructed on such plots,” said the First Bench of Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan.

The Bench said the order was necessary to save the ecology and prevent flooding while simultaneously giving time to the State government to come up with legislative changes.

It then directed the Inspector General of Registration to circulate the order to all registering authorities (Sub-Registrars) in the State. 

The interim directions were passed on a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate ‘Elephant’ G. Rajendran seeking a direction to the government to forebear the local administration from giving approval or permission to convert agricultural lands into housing layouts and forebear the Registration Department from registering such property. 

The Bench expressed its concern over the absence of any provision for regulating conversion of agricultural lands that were uncultivated for more than three years.

Registration need not be denied in all cases: HC

The Madras High Court on Friday Oct 21,2016  indicated that its earlier order prohibiting registration of unapproved plots converted as house-sites was not a blanket ban, but was limited to some categories of registration that were of concern to it.

When the matter came up before the First Bench, it was informed that registration was not taking place even in some categories that were not covered by the concern of the court. Therefore, it permitted counsel for petitioners who had approached it for relief to categorise their applications based on the nature of the land being registered. Once the categorisation was complete, the Bench said it would consider modifying or lifting its earlier order of September 8,2016

The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan, took note of Section 22-A of the Tamil Nadu Registration (Amendment) Act, 2008, notified on October 20, 2016. “It is fairly stated with this provision coming into force, sub-section (2) would prevent registration of instruments of lands converted as house sites without [approval of] development of such land from planning authorities concerned. However, the difference is that the proviso excludes the house sites which were already registered as such.” The Bench gave an instance of a category of registration for which there can be no impediment: agricultural land sought to be transferred as agricultural land, with an undertaking to use it as such. There might be other similar cases. Those applicants seeking to be impleaded, after some discussion, agreed that they would categorise these registrations, so that specific orders may be obtained regarding instruments that were unnecessarily not being registered.

Once the categorisation was done, the Bench said it would examine those categories that might still require adjudication with reference to the government’s policy. After counsel stated that a two-week period would be sufficient for the categorisation to be worked out, the Bench adjourned the hearing to November 16 with the observation that it would consider modifying or lifting its earlier order after the categorisation was submitted to the court.

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