The duty of the State to protect, conserve, and augment traditional water retaining structures, and the need to restore water storage tanks, ponds, and lakes as part of rainwater harvesting schemes.

1. The petitioner has come forward with the above Writ Petition seeking to quash the impugned orders dated 29.09.2003 and 17.09.2002 passed by the second and first respondents respectively and to direct the second respondent to assign the land in question to the petitioner.

2. Admittedly, the petitioner is living in Alagar Koil Road, Madurai North, which was originally classified as Vaikal Poramboke as per the Revenue Records and he has been living in that area for the past many years. The petitioner seek for regularisation of the encroachment in the property in question. According to the petitioner, no notice was served on him and he cannot be evicted except in accordance with law.

3. Heard both sides and perused the materials available on record.

4. It is worthwhile to notice a Full Bench decision of this Court in W.P. No. 1294 of 2009, dated 30.10.2015 (T.K. Shanmugam vs. The State of Tamil Nadu and Others), wherein the Full Bench has exhaustively dealt with the encroachment on water bodies, the relevant portion of which are extracted hereunder:

"12. A Public Interest Litigation was filed by one Mr. L. Krishnan seeking for a direction against the Government and the Revenue Officials to remove encroachments made by certain private parties in a Odai Poraomboke in Villupuram District. While disposing of the Writ Petition, the Division Bench pointed out that ponds, tanks and lakes have been an essential part of the people's natural resources, however in recent years, these have been illegally encroached by unscrupulous persons and this has had adverse effect on the lives of the people. Further, it was pointed out that day in and day out, many petitions are filed by way of Public Interest Litigation alleging encroachments into ponds/tanks/lakes/ odai Poramboke etc. in different parts of the State, more particularly in villages. Having regard to the acute water scarcity prevailing in the State of Tamil Nadu, it was pointed out that a time has come where the State has to take some definite measures to restore the already earmarked water storage tanks, ponds and lakes as disclosed in the revenue records to its original states as part of its rain water harvesting scheme. The Court took judicial notice of the action initiated by the State Government by implementing the water harvesting scheme as a time bound programme. It was further pointed out that it is imperative that such natural resources provided for water shortage facilities are maintained by the State Government by taking all possible steps both by taking preventive measures as well as by removal of unlawful encroachments. After referring to the decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Hinch Lal Tiwari vs. Kamal Devi, 2001 (6) SCC 496, it was held that the endeavour of the State should be to protect the material resources like Forests, Tanks, Ponds etc. in order to maintain ecological balance, which would pave the way to provide a healthy environment and enable the people to enjoy a quality life, which is essence of the right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. It was further held that in the State of Tamil Nadu having regard to the precarious water situation prevailing in the major part of the year, it is imperative that such noted water storage resources, such as tanks, odai, oornis, canals etc are not obliterated by encroachers. Reference was also made to Article 48-A of the Constitution. The Division Bench after referring to the other decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Kesavananda Bharathi vs. State of Kerala, 1973 (4) SCC 225; Animal and Environment Legal Defence Fund vs. UOI, 1997 (3) SCC 549; M.C. Metha vs. UOI, 1997 (3) SCC 715, issued certain directions. The directions issued were two fold, firstly, a positive direction to remove the encroachments over odai poramboke which was complained of in the said Public Interest Litigation, secondly, a direction to the State Government to identify all such natural water resources in different