A row over recent premature termination of a 99-year-long lease given to Madras Race club (MRC) in 1946 with respect to 160.86 acres of land at Guindy in Chennai turned murkier on Thursday with two advocates representing the State government disputing Advocate General (A-G) P.S. Raman’s statements recorded by a Division Bench of the Madras High Court on September 9.
Appearing before Justice RMT Teekaa Raman, senior counsel P. Wilson and Additional Advocate General (AAG) J. Ravindran, holding the brief for the Revenue Secretary and the Chennai Collector respectively, said, the statements of the A-G recorded by the second Division Bench of Justices S.S. Sundar and K. Rajasekar in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the September 9 order “are not correct statements.”
The first contentious paragraph read: “Learned Advocate General appearing on behalf of the respondents, on instructions, submitted that G.O. (Government Order) 343 issued on September 6, 2024 is only for the purpose of communicating the decision to terminate the lease and it need not be read that they have also directed resumption of land by taking possession in the said Government Order.”
The next paragraph read: “Learned Advocate General also submitted that the Government will pass separate proceedings to terminate the lease and will thereafter, initiate proceedings to take possession of the land in the manner known to law.” However, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Ravindran claimed the lease was terminated on September 6 and government took possession of the lands on September 9.
When Justice Raman wondered how the statements made by the highest law officer of the State, holding a constitutional position, could be disputed by the government now, the AAG replied that a miscellaneous petition had already been filed for modification of the two contentious paragraphs but it was yet to be numbered and listed for hearing before the second Division Bench.
The AAG also stated that the Chennai Collector had on September 9 granted 15 days’ time to the MRC to handover the possession of only the buildings that had been constructed on the lands.
The submissions were made during the hearing of an application filed by MRC seeking exemption from the statutory requirement of serving a two month long pre-suit notice on the government before instituting a civil suit against the lease termination proceedings. The club claimed it could not wait for two months to file the suit since it had been given only 15 days’ time to hand over the possession of the property.
Senior Counsel P.H. Arvindh Pandian brought it to the notice of the court that Section 80(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure requires every civil suit against the Centre or the State government to be filed only after expiration of two months from the date of serving of a written pre-suit notice. However, 80(2) of the CPC empowers the court to grant leave (permission) to file the suit even without the issuance of the two month long notice.
The only pre-condition for granting leave (permission) was that the court must be satisfied of an urgent and immediate need for the plaintiff to obtain interim relief against the government without waiting for two months. Therefore, the issue of allowing the application was entirely between the court and the applicant, with the government having absolutely no role to play at the preliminary stage, the senior counsel argued.
He also stoutly denied the claim of the government having already taken possession of the lands and asserted that the property continued to be in possession of the club as on date. He said, a horse race was conducted even as latest as on Saturday (September 14, 2024) at the club property and therefore, it was wrong on the part of the government to claim that the property had been taken possession of.
Recalling the recent events, he said the G.O. 343 was issued on September 6, 2024 for the premature termination of the lease granted on March 8, 1946 but it had shockingly instructed the Chennai Collector to take possession of the lands too forthwith. Two days later, the revenue officials descended with a huge posse of police personnel and sealed the gates in the club premises on September 9, he said.
Immediately, the MRC complained about the coercive action to the second Division Bench which was already seized of a writ appeal filed by the club alleging arbitrary demand of exorbitant rental arrears by the State government. It was brought to the judges’ notice that the action had been initiated by misinterpreting an interim order passed by them in the writ appeal on September 4, 2024.
When the judges questioned how the termination of lease as well as possession proceedings could be initiated simultaneously without any notice to the club, the A-G stated that separate proceedings would be issued for terminating the lease as well as for resuming possession of the property.
Thereafter, Revenue Secretary P. Amudha wrote to the club on September 9, stating that the government had decided to terminate the 1946 lease agreement executed in favour of the MRC and that the lease stands terminated with effect from September 6, 2024. On September 9, the Chennai Collector too wrote a separate letter calling upon the MRC to surrender possession of the buildings within 15 days.
The Collector permitted the club to use even the paddock area, for training the horses, only for a period of 15 days. Since the MRC had received the Collector’s letter only on September 10 and the 15-day breathing period would come to an end on September 24, there was a dire urgency to file the civil suit without serving a two-month-long pre-suit notice on the government, Mr. Pandian argued.
However, referring to a new dispute that had now arisen as to whether the government had taken possession of the lands or not, the judge granted time till Monday for the State government to make its submissions in writing by way of a counter affidavit to the MRC’s application for dispensing with the requirement of issuing pre-suit notice.
Published - September 19, 2024 12:47 pm IST
