CHENNAI: Appearing before the Madras High Court virtually on Wednesday, Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Rajeev Ranjan assured that measures would be taken to release pending compensations kept waiting for several years to people whose lands were acquired by the State for public purposes.

Justice N  Seshasayee, who was dealing with such cases, directed the appearance of the Chief Secretary on Wednesday because of the large number of cases pending at various levels of the courts.

“We have got cases where the government has entered or utilised the land without acquiring it. Today, we have a case in which lands were occupied for the Aliyar project for 35 years and converted for government purposes without even acquiring them,” Justice Seshasayee said.

During the hearing, the justice told the Chief Secretary that according to his findings, which he has compiled into a 138-page book, “I have collected statistics of all the execution petitions pending in all the courts in the State. As per the report, the total arrears payable to various landowners comes to around Rs 1,053 crore.”

In some of the cases even a meagre Rs 15,000 is pending under litigation, he added. The judge stressed to the Chief Secretary that since it is the Budget session it expected that some relief and allocations would be granted.

“It was about Rs 800 crore a few years back. Now it has swelled to Rs 1,053 crore,” Justice Seshasayee added. Lamenting on the entire disbursal mechanism, the court said the State is neither acquiring the lands to be utilised for the purpose nor paying compensation to the landowners.

The judge adjourned the plea to March 4  for the State to file a detailed report on the progress made.