The Madras High Court has granted permission to build the Kallakurichi Collectorate complex after getting the approval from the relevant departments.
A collectorate complex was to be built on 14.09 hectares (34.82 acres) of drylands belonging to Sri Arthanareeswarar Temple located at Veerachozhapuram in Kallakurichi district.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the new Collectorate complex was held on October 23 without purchasing the land from the HR&CE department.
Earlier, a bench comprising Justices M Sathyanarayanan and R Hemalatha, stayed the construction of the collectorate after several devotees and Hindu organizations registered their objections with the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department and subsequently filed a case.
In February 2021, the bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamurthy gave the green signal to acquire 35 acres belonging to the Sri Nareeswarar Temple. The bench also directed the state government to form a two-member committee comprising the Kallakurichi district collector and district judge to ascertain the value of the land which is to be alienated from the temple.
The petition came up for hearing again before the bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamurthy. As there was a big discrepancy between the report given by the committee and the value reported on behalf of the petitioner, the State Bank of India had ordered the appraisers to nominate the names of the three persons. In it, the judges ordered that someone was to be appointed as an appraiser and file a report. It was also ordered that the petitioner and the Government representative may be present while the appraiser conducts the inspection.
Following this, Advocate General Vijay Narayan demanded that the ban on construction work be lifted as there was only a problem related to the determination of rent. The tender procedure and the environmental permit were also questioned by the petitioner. The bench granted permission to the government to start construction upon obtaining the approval of the relevant departments. The case has now been adjourned to the second week of June.
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