JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Contempt Petition filed under Section 11 of Contempt of the Courts Act, 1971, for wilful disobedience of the order passed in W.M.P.No.3683 of 2020 in W.P.No.3177 of 2020, dated 10.02.2020.)

1. The facts germane to filing of this Contempt Petition are as follows :

(i) That for a National Highways Scheme to be undertaken by National Highways Authority of India (in short “NHAI”), certain lands in Sriperumbudur Taluk, Kanchipuram District, were sought to be acquired.

(ii) Notification in this regard was issued by Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on 05.12.2017.

(iii) In this process, lands were acquired from two villages, namely Nemili-A and Ayakolathur villages.

(iv) In the land acquisition proceedings, as per the award passed, compensation were disbursed to the land owners.

(v) While that being so, one Rajendran, S/o. Ramasamy had filed a writ petition in W.P.No.3177 of 2020, where he claimed that, he was having vacant lands at various nagars developed in that villages by some developers, out of which, lands earmarked for public purposes like road, street, public utility like school, park etc., having been earmarked as per the lay out plan were handed over to the local body by way of Gift Deed. Therefore by virtue of that, those lands which is otherwise called as OSR lands have been vested with the local body concerned.

(vi) The said writ petitioner also stated that, subsequently when the land acquisition proceedings as stated supra had been initiated, it seems that several number of individual persons managed to get registered the lands earmarked as OSR lands and handed over to the local body, as if, it is their private lands from the original promoters and based on which, they also claimed compensation from land acquisition authorities.

(vii) Pursuant to such claim made, huge sum have already been distributed or being distributed, however, the compensation calculated for such lands which were originally earmarked as OSR lands are to be evenly distributed to the land owners like the writ petitioner as they have purchased the plots in the lay out plan developed by the original promoters, therefore, if at all the OSR lands also are acquired for the Highways purpose, the compensation payable to such OSR lands also to be paid to them evenly and without paying the same to them, it was about to be distributed to various individuals who clandestinely registered such lands in their favour from the original promoters as if that those lands still were in the hands of the original promoters unmindful of the handing over of the said OSR lands to the local bodies. Therefore in order to restrain the official respondents, i.e., land acquisition authority from distributing the said compensation forbearing the individuals from receiving such compensation amount for the public utility reserved areas in the lay out properties, had approached this Court and filed the said writ petition in W.P.No.3177 of 2020 seeking for a writ of mandamus directing the official respondents in the writ petition to consider the representation in this regard of the writ petitioner dated 10.11.2019 and forbearing the respondents 8 to 18, i.e., the private persons who had been named as respondents in the writ petition from receiving the compensation amount for the public utility reserved areas in the lay out property.

(viii) The said writ petition came up for hearing before a learned Judge on 10.02.2020. On that date, the learned Judge, on the prima facie case projected by the writ petitioner, passed an interim order to the following effect :

"Heard Mr. S. Sathish, Learned Counsel for the Petitioner, Mr. M.Elumalai, Learned Government Advocate for the First to Third and Fifth Respondents, Mr. Su.Srinivasan, Learned Counsel for the Fourth Respondent and Mr. M. Thamizharasan, Learned Additional Government Pleader for the Sixth a