Madras High Court has rejected hearing the plea filed by late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s niece challenging the acquisition of Veda Nilayam by the state government and denied interim stay as well.
The court has referred the plea by Jayalalitha’s niece Deepa Jayakumar to a division bench led by Justice N Kirubakaran taking note of the fact that a similar plea filed by her brother Deepak has already been referred to the similar bench.
The court has refused the interim stay on the acquisition of the late CM j Jayalalitha’s residence Veda Nilayam in Poes Garden and asked the petitioner to wait till the bench commence hearing.
Over continuous request by the petitioner Deepa Jayakumar’s counsel to put a stay on the acquisition, the judge questioned: “where Deepa was staying when her aunt was alive”.
To which the petitioner replied that before becoming the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalitha used to stay in a joint family, and later she got separated.
Petitioner Deepa Kumar had moved Madras High Court seeking directions to quash the July 22 order of a land acquisition officer in Guindy under which TN government acquires the late CM’s residence in Veda Nilayam in Poes Garden to convert it into a memorial under Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.
Advocate General Vijay Narayan has stated that the petitioner should file such a plea in the city civil court instead of approaching High Court. He further added, “There is no case since the compensation amount is already deposited in the city civil court.”
The petitioner had filed the petition citing the ground that under Land Acquisition Act, 2013, does not empower the state government to acquire private land to convert it into a memorial and that it has been done even without conducting and publishing social impact assessment, which is mandatory under the act.
She claimed that the acquisition officer is not a competent authority to pass the orders. Deepa Jayakumar also contended that the Land Acquisition Act does not provide for the acquisition of movable properties in the residence like gold, silver, jewelry, and other precious items. Therefore, she sought the directions to hand over all the movable properties to her.
Besides questioning the powers Chennai Corporation and TamilNadu Government, Jayalalitha’s niece also sought the directions to restrain the department from withdrawing the compensation deposited with the jurisdictional civil court, until the matter is heard by two-judge session.
Earlier Deepa Jayakumar had also accused the Tamil Nadu government of to usurping the property and called the move to convert Veda Nilayam into a memorial, a scandal, considering the forthcoming elections, to woo the Tamil Nadu voters.
