Pay Rs 1 lakh fine for wasting courts time

CHENNAI: A Division Bench of the Madras High Court has imposed Rs 1 lakh fine on a batch of litigants, who wasted the court’s time by filing writ petitions and later writ appeals challenging the acquisition of land under the TN Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, last week.The Division Bench comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and M Venugopal, which imposed the cost on appellants R Saraswathi and three others challenging acquisition of land measuring 2,426 square metres in Saravanampatti village in Coimbatore district, observed that the imposition was to arrest these type of litigations, i.e. approaching the court after the lapse of time and after the proceedings had attai-ned finality. “It was a fit case where the appellants should be imposed the cost,” the Bench said and accordingly imposed the cost and directed them to pay the money to the TN State Legal Aid Authority within two weeks.Originally, the Assistant Commissioner, Urban Land Ceiling, Coimbatore, initiated proceedings in respect of the land in question owned by Ramaswamy Gounder in December 1992. Proceedings under Sec 9(5) of the Act were issued in January, 1999.  Gounder, who did not oppose the proceedings, died in September, 2000. However, his legal heirs preferred writ petitions challenging this in 2005 and a single judge on June 7, 2011, dismissed them. Aggrieved, they preferred the pr-esent writ appeals.