Chennai Corner

Courts For Land Grab Cases

Even as CM Jayalalitha has opened up a new front to tackle illegal buildings— there are believed to be 1.5 lakh in Chennai alone— land grab cases have been mounting. Nearly 18,000 land grab cases have been filed since Jayalalitha came to power on May 16. If DMK leaders thought they were arrested in land grab cases so that she could take mileage before the bypoll and local body polls, they have another think coming because Jayalalitha plans to go the whole hog. In pursuance of that, five courts— initially to function in Tirunelveli, Krishnagiri, Salem, Erode and Tirupur— have been sanctioned by the Madras high court to try cases of land-grabbing.

Originally, the government had requested the high court to form 25 special courts for the exclusive trial of land-grabbing cases throughout the state, because cases have been increasing. Chief Justice M. Y. Eqbal, accepting the reasons justifying the constitution of these courts and has decided to create the courts in a phased manner and the five courts are just the beginning. The government has already issued orders for an increase in the strength of judicial officers, sanction of additional staff and other corresponding facilities for each special court, as proposed by the high court.

Family Problems

Even as union minister M.K. Azhagiri’s is caught in the swirl of allegations of land grab against his wife, Kanthi, and son, Dayanadihi, and with his daughter Kanimozhi’s long stint in Tihar jail and his grand nephews, the Maran brothers, in the eye of a storm after recently being raided by the CBI, it looks like former CM Karunanidhi has to brace himself for other members of his family being in the firing line too. While he is still coming to terms with Kanimozhi’s incarceration, there was news of a cheating case against Jyothimani, son-in-law of his Bangalore-based daughter Selvi.

The case, registered on September 18 was that he and three others including his sister, Uma Maheshwari, cheated a businessman of Rs 1.4 crore. Just before that another family member got embroiled in the law. M. K. M. Arivunidhi, a grandson of the former CM, (son Muthu’s progeny) was given anticipatory bail by the Madras high court in a complaint filed against him alleging trespass, forgery and intimidation. He was also directed to appear before the police whenever they called him in.

In the Jyothimani case, the complainant R Somashekhar of T’Nagar claimed that he was forced to agree to buy 4.5 grounds of land at G N Chetty Road, in the heart of Chennai, when the CM’s grand son-in-law met him and convinced him that he could get the land for a song —Rs 1.4 crores. Somashekhar handed over the money but never got the land. He has said in his police complaint that when he asked for the money back, Jyothimani threatened him.

Divine help

Rajathi Ammal will have to wait some more days for divine intervention although she is praying hard for her daughter. Late last month, Rajathi Ammal had prayed at the Krishna temple in Udupi, Karnataka. She had received a Krishna idol and prasadam from Siru Lakshmi Varaha Theertha Swami at the Krishna mutt. But her prayer that Kanimozhi will be out of Tihar jail by Deepavali was not answered.

Speaking of divine help, the Maran brothers went to the Shirdi Saibaba temple to genuflect, weeks after there was a raid on their office and respective houses. The CBI has continued its investigation and recently even some BSNL staff protested that a recently retired GM was hanging around the BSNL office allegedly to tamper with files. “After retirement what business does he have here?” a union spokesman asked.

Kalanithi Maran and wife Kaveri, Dayanidhi and wife Priya and their aunt Selvi went together. Selvi, who is married to Murasoli Selvam(younger brother of the late Murasoli Maran), had made a tearful call to her father the day the Marans were raided by the CBI. The same daughter (as opposed to Kanimozhi who apparently has no love lost for the Marans and was in fact kept out of the reunion) who brought the family feud between the Karunanidhi and Maran clan to an end in December 2008, had gone to Sri Kalahasti, accompanied by Kaveri Maran, to perform a special pooja days before the CBI raid. Bargaining with God?

Lying low

Azhagiri is lying low. In fact, the only thing he is still mostly doing is staying away from Delhi although he is the union minister for chemicals and fertilizers. When Jayalalitha was campaigning in Madurai for the local body elections, she could not help herself. “Azhagiri and his henchmen who accompanied him kept you in perpetual fear. But now it is you who have become the bravehearts and he is shying away,” she ridiculed.

Azhagiri, a backroom boy that the DMK relied on in the past to win elections, did not come to kickstart the campaign, nor showed up later causing heartburn. “The party has seen many ups and downs and has even withstood the Emergency. But the situation is different now. Many leaders, who had a free hand and made huge money are not willing to face police onslaught nor sacrifice for the party.” But in retrospect (after the results of the local body elections) it will be correct to say that Azhagiri has lost his iron grip over Madurai and as Jayalalitha predicted, people have become bravehearts.

Collecting troubles

Incidentally Udhayachandran (the secretary of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission which was raided by the vigilance directorate) was the collector of Madurai and was transferred to Erode abruptly four years ago. He was a tough officer like the present incumbent U. Sagayam. The difference is that Udayachandran was posted in Madurai when M. K. Azhagiri, was all powerful and Sagayam is in charge when the temple city is no more the fiefdom of the “anja nenjar”(braveheart).

Recently, Sagayam directed civic authorities to remove encroachments, if any by Dhaya Cyber Park, established by Azhagiri’s family in 2007 on 1.20 acres of pattta land, after complaints that it was constructed on encroached poromboke land. According to the collector’s letter to Madurai City Corporation Commissioner, S. Natarajan, a compound wall on 0.14 cents of land was constructed on the western side and on the northern side too, 0.08 cents of land was encroached to construct a compound wall. In addition, another IT company nearby was emboldened to erect a transformer by encroaching on 11.5 cents of land and also build a compound wall around its premises, while two other persons had encroached on 5.5 cents and 1.5 cents of land respectively in the same locality.

Now that local elections are over, Corporation Commissioner Natarajan says he will get down to checking whether there are encroachments.

Second bout

This is the second time, Sagayam has tangled with Azhagiri. He had sent a summons to Azhagiri after a district official had complained that the Dhaya College of Engineering, owned by M. K. Alagiri Educational Trust in which the union minister, his wife Kanthi and son Durai Dhayanidhi were trustees, had damaged two of the five irrigation sluices originating from Karisalkulam tank, which was irrigating 331.83 acres of land, during its construction. However, the Madurai bench of Madras High Court ordered Sagayam to expunge some contents of the summons and issue a fresh one after Azhagiri challenged it in court.

Azhagiri has also got relief from the court in another case concerning the college recently. Labelling it “arbitrary” and caused by “bias”, the high court quashed an appeal made on August 20 by Anna University of Technology- Madurai rejecting the plea for affiliation by Dhaya College of Engineering.

The university has been directed to reconsider, within 10 days, its decision in accordance with a decision handed down by a Division Bench of the High Court on August 9 in the first round of litigation related to denial of affiliation to the college. The case began when the university denied affiliation saying there was a shortage of 175 books in the library, the cafeteria was next to a classroom and there was no transport to the college located outside Madurai at Sivarakottai.

The college responded with a writ petition in July saying that it had set right all the drawbacks. The judge ordered the university to give it affiliation which was declined leading to the current appeal in which the university brought up new objections— failure to obtain permission for conversion of agricultural lands to construct the college buildings and failure to produce clearance certificate under Section 37-B of the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961. The university had quoted from the collector’s report to bring up these deficiencies but quashing the university's order, the judge pointed out that the university had not issued any notice to the college calling for production of the documents whose absence was given as the reason for denying affiliation.

Edible Tamil Cinema

It was like watching an episode of the “Ultimate Cake off” on Travel and Living Channel. Recently, Chennai’s biggest mall celebrated 75 years of Tamil cinema with a 1000 kg cake that was 333 feet long. The cake chronicled 75 years of cinema, with each kilo of the cake (priced at Rs 1,500) depicting one year as a still from a film, i.e Pattinathar made in 1936 to Mangatha made this year. Needless to mention, the who’s who of the Tamil industry turned out to gawk at the cake.

It was made by a well known bakery here as part of promoting Joy of Giving Week. The proceeds from selling the cake (nearly Rs 2.5 lakhs) was given to Mahesh Memorial Trust, an organization that helps paediatric cancer patients. The cake was baked by 22 chefs over nine hours and had 500 kilos of cocoa, 300 kilos of chocolate, 200 kilos of fresh cream and 1000 icing sheets on which a still of a young Rajnikanth in Muratukaalai was carved in the same line as a still of Arya and Nayanthaara in Boss Engira Bhaskaran. Boopesh Pichaimani, city chef of the French Loaf which baked the cake, pointed out: “It was a chocolate truffle, eggless photo cake. Since a lot of our customers are vegetarians, we decided to make it eggless so that anyone who wants to buy, can do so without hesitation.”