The Madras High Court on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, dismissed a writ petition filed by the Murasoli Trust, which is associated with the DMK party, to prohibit the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) from inquiring into a complaint of the Trust being in occupation of 12 grounds of Panchami land in Chennai.
Justice S.M. Subramaniam rejected the 2020 writ petition and held that “an investigation and an inquiry by the commission is warranted for the purpose of ascertaining the truth regarding the character of the land in order to safeguard and protect the interest of the scheduled caste members.”
The judge said the Trust had levelled a charge of bias against L. Murugan, who was the vice-chairman of NCSC in 2019-2020. However, the notices issued by him had lost relevance now since he had left the NCSC and become Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
Therefore, the judge directed the NCSC to issue a fresh notice to the trust and proceed with the inquiry by affording an opportunity of hearing to all parties concerned, and pass appropriate orders uninfluenced by any of the observations made by him in connection with the disputed facts.
Though the Chennai Collector had submitted certain records since 1912 to prove that the contentious land had been classified as Ryotwari and not Panchami, the judge pointed out that the complainant’s counsel had highlighted certain discrepancies in those documents.
The judge said such disputed facts, related to the classification of the land, could be gone into only by the NCSC by conducting a detailed inquiry and not by the High Court in writ jurisdiction. “The High Court in writ proceedings cannot usurp the powers of the commission,” he wrote.
Justice Subramaniam went on to state: “This court feels that the petitioner with no adequate reason has approached the court to restrain the commission from initiating an inquiry based on a complaint received by it. This court finds no merit in seeking a writ to restrain, which will only inhibit the natural course of legal proceedings that needs to be carried out by the Commission.”
