Remove encroachments: HC
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The Madras high court on Tuesday directed the state home secretary, Thiruvannamalai district collector and police superintendent, among other officials, to take immediate steps to remove all encroachments in Thiruvannamali hill, including the one at Mulaipal Theertham, behind the famous Arunachaleshwarar temple.
Disposing of a writ petition filed by C.M. Sivababu, district president of Indu Makkal Katchi, the bench of Chief Justice M.Y. Eqbal and T.S. Sivagnanam said, “It is high time that the officers of the state government should take immediate steps for removal of encroachments including the encroachment made by eight respondent (Vedha Viththu)” at Mulaipal Theertham.
The bench asked the government to take action against the officials if they fail to discharge their duties.
“We fail to understand why the respondents (officials) posted at different places allow the encroachers to grab land in the name of temple construction when there is a clear direction by the Supreme Court not to allow such construction of temple and to demolish all religious structures standing on the government lands of public roads,” the judges observed.
Sivababu submitted that Vedha Viththu, a close associate of Swami Nithyananda Paramahamsa, had encroached around 50 cents of land behind the temple and had used explosives to blast and break the rocks of the sacred mountain during January 2010.
Vedha Viththu has refrigerators, beer and brandy bottles and obscene DVDs among other accessories in his ‘Kudil’ at Mulaipal Theertham, he claimed.
Meanwhile, the collector filed an affidavit admitting that Vedha Viththu had encroached the government land on the holy hill.
“From the statement made in the affidavit by the district collector, it is evidently clear that officials allowed the eight respondent (Vedha Viththu) to make construction and although they were duty bound to stop the construction and remove all encroachment, till date nothing has been done,” the bench said.
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