Evict SASTRA varsity from 31.37 acres of government land, says Madras High Court

The Madras High Court on Friday directed the State government to evict Shanmuga Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy (SASTRA), a deemed university based in Thanjavur, from 31.37 acres of government land in its occupation for nearly 40 years.

The Third Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and C.  Kumarappan said the Thanjavur Collector could even seek the assistance of the police to evict the educational institution from the government property, required for the establishment of a prison, within four weeks.

The orders were passed while the court dismissed two writ petitions filed by the institution in 2022 challenging a Government Order (G.O.) issued on February 23, 2022, refusing to assign the government land in favour of the university by accepting other lands offered in exchange by it.

‘No absolute right’

Observing that either acceptance or rejection of an alternative land offered by an encroacher was the absolute discretion of the government, the Division Bench wrote, “Assignment of an encroached land cannot be claimed as an absolute right by the encroachers.”

After recording the government’s submission that it required the 31.37 acres to establish a prison, the judges said, “Under these circumstances, the petitioner has not established even a semblance of legal right for the purpose of sustaining their request either before the government or this court.”

Authoring the verdict, Justice Subramaniam also said, “The petitioner university, by virtue of its status as an educational institution, was able to litigate and re-litigate the same issues again and again for the past about 30 years and increased the longevity of the litigations.”

The Bench pointed out that even the present writ petitions, filed by the university challenging the G.O. and the consequential order passed by a Tahsildar to evict the property within four weeks, had been pending in the High Court for the last three years. “The government is unable to implement a public purpose project for the past more than three decades on account of continuous litigations raised by the writ petitioner,” it said.

It held that the institution could not seek parity just because the government had assigned public lands to many other institutions in the past.

Offer rejected

The university had told the court that it owns 32 acres of private land right opposite its Thirumalaisamudram campus with direct access to the national highway. It owned another 36.16 acres adjoining its campus and contiguous to the government land and this property too had direct access from the national highway. Apart from these, the university owned 86.80 acres of agricultural land in the neighbouring  Thatchankurichi village with all amenities such as power and a borewell. The institution had offered any of these three properties in exchange for the assignment of the 31.37 acres of government land and agreed to pay the difference in value. However, the government rejected the offer.