City corporation to repossess property leased out 54 years ago

COIMBATORE: After 34 years of legal battle, the city corporation will finally be able to get hold of a building it owns near the VOC Park. The Madras high court has directed the civic body to initiate eviction process within eight weeks.


In 1964, the civic body had signed a lease agreement with Alda Fowler Nursery School Trust for 20 years for the 3,436sqft building on 16,355sqft land. The trust was to pay the civic body Rs 1 per year for the property, in which a nursery school was set up.

But the school management, which had been paying the lease amount regularly till 1984, refused to vacate the building even after the lease period got over. It also stopped paying the lease amount, a corporation official said.

The school moved the high court after the civic body sealed the building in 2015. In a writ petition, the school management claimed that it was difficult to vacate the place as the school is functioning with 68 children and 10 staff.

The civic body said that the school management has been running another school within 350m from the location and they could move the students to the other school.

“We could not evict them as a civil suit was pending for more than 30 years,” the official told TOI.

In the order dated July 30, the high court directed the corporation to evict the petitioner from the premises within a period of eight weeks and to calculate the arrears of lease amount to be paid. “The writ petitioner is to be treated as an encroacher for all purpose and the administrator is empowered to invoke the provisions under the Tamil Nadu Land Encroachment Act, 1905,” the order said.

As there is no district branch library in the centre of the city and a library, which was functioning next to the Officers Club building, was converted as a special court after the 1998 bomb blast, the corporation has proposed to construct a library on the property after the school is removed.

The corporation will conduct the eviction after studying the court order and holding a meeting on Monday, town planning officer S Ravichandran said.