Justice N. Anand Venkatesh felt it would be appropriate to refer deepa case also to the Division Bench

CHENNAI
Case against acquisition of Jaya’s house may go to Division Bench
Legal Correspondent
CHENNAI 08 AUGUST 2020 00:23 IST
UPDATED: 08 AUGUST 2020 00:23 IST

‘Deepa, Deepak want to retain Veda Nilayam for their use’
A single judge of the Madras High Court on Friday referred to a Division Bench a case filed by former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s niece J. Deepa, who challenged a land acquisition officer’s July 27 award for acquiring her aunt’s Poes Garden residence Veda Nilayam.

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh felt it would be appropriate to refer her case also to the Division Bench since he had already referred a similar case filed by her brother J. Deepak, who had challenged the acquisition proceedings in entirety and not just the award alone.

Advocate General Vijay Narayan brought it to the notice of the court that a Division Bench of Justices N. Kirubakaran and Abdul Quddhose had declared the siblings to be the legal heirs of Jayalalithaa on May 27 and recorded their undertaking to establish a public trust.

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The court had left it to the siblings to identify select properties left behind by their aunt, liquidate them and utilise the money for performing public welfare activities through the trust. It had also directed the State government to provide adequate security to the legal heirs.

“I have gone through that judgment carefully and found that the Division Bench had ordered for listing of the case once again after eight weeks only to report compliance of the two aspects related to formation of the public trust and providing security,” Mr. Narayan said.

Concurring with the A-G that the Bench had ordered for re-listing of the case only for a limited purpose of reporting compliance of their order, Justice Venkatesh said the problem now was that the siblings wanted to retain Veda Nilayam for their personal use.

They were willing to liquidate other properties for the purpose of creation of a trust and hence, it would be appropriate that the present writ petitions also get listed before the Bench in order to avoid any contrary orders being passed by different judges, he added.

When Ms. Deepa’s counsel insisted on staying all further proceedings with regard to the acquisition until her writ petition gets listed for hearing before the Division Bench, Mr. Narayan wondered what was there to stay now when the award amount had already been deposited in a city civil court.

The judge agreed and refused to pass any kind of interim orders. He directed the Registry to place the matter before Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi, who would decide whether the cases would get listed before a Division Bench holding the portfolio concerned at present or before the same Bench which declared the siblings as legal heirs.