Following the Madras High Court order, the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) department has begun the paperwork to retrieve 62 acres of encroached land of Arulmigu Trisoolanathar temple in Tirusulam.
The authorities have also been asked by the Madras HC to submit an action-taken report within six weeks.
The court order said, “The report should also indicate how and under what circumstances a part of the land belonging to the temple may have been given to a third party.”
The order came after advocate S Xavier Felix filed a plea stating that a substantial part of the land belonging to the temple was encroached upon and the authorities have failed to take appropriate steps to retrieve the land.
Government counsel P Muthukumar told the court that 83.26 acres of land belonging to the temple was in possession of a third party of which the temple was receiving a rent of nearly 21 acres, adding that the 62-acre temple land was encroached upon using forged documents by the encroachers and informed that action was being taken to retrieve the land.