The completion of the MRTS railway line between Velachery and St Thomas Mount, a stretch of about 500 metres, is set to be delayed further as the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has approached the Supreme Court seeking a stay on an order of the Madras High Court. The Madras High Court had, in March 2019, ordered the CMDA to pay the land owners higher compensation.
According to a report in Times of India, N Ravikumar, senior planner of CMDA, filed the petition asking for an interim stay on the high court order. The state government has requested the Supreme Court to allow it to deposit the difference in the land acquisition amount in the court and take possession of the land. In its petition, the government of Tamil Nadu also stated that it wants to stick to a 2016-order which allowed it to pay compensation as per the land value as on January 1, 2011, which comes to Rs 1912 per square feet.
The Madras High Court, in 2019, had ordered the government of Tamil Nadu to pay an enhanced compensation of Rs 4500 per square feet of land it was looking to acquire for the completion of the railway line.
This stretch of the 20-kilometre railway line has been under dispute for a long time since Phase-1 of the railway line between Chennai Beach and Mylapore was inaugurated in 1995, as per a report. The initial plan was reportedly to construct the line in the Adambakkam area on the poramboke lands near the Adambakkam lake. However, since those lands were allotted to people, the plan had to be changed.
In the new plan, the Southern Railway marked a small stretch of road, which would result in the demolition of around 75 houses in the locality. Angered house owners filed a plea in the Madras High Court and obtained an interim injunction against demolishing the houses. What angered them even more was that the compensation to their property was computed based on the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 and not the newer Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. The new Act allows government agencies to offer higher value for the property they acquire than the guideline value prevailing at that time.