The Supreme Court has held that water bodies and communal poramboke land cannot be granted on ryotwari patta under the Tamil Nadu Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948, and that Section 14-A of the Act bars such grants and renders them void. A Bench of Justice S.V.N. Bhatti and Justice N.V. Anjaria delivered the judgment on 16 October 2026 in S. Gururaj v. Additional Chief Secretary/Commissioner of Land Administration (Civil Appeal No. 13629 of 2026 with 13630-13631; neutral citation 2026 INSC 1146).

The dispute concerned 0.72 acres out of 1.68 acres in Survey No. 572 of Thirumullaivoyal village in Tiruvallur district, recorded in the 1911 register as Government Poramboke – Kanakkan Kuttai, a pond.

A District Revenue Officer had granted a patta over the land on 21 January 2011. The Commissioner of Land Administration cancelled it on 26 December 2019, finding administrative fraud and a manipulated, untraceable file.

The land had meanwhile been mortgaged to Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank for Rs 3.40 crore (yaani about three and a half crore rupees), and 20 flats — MVM Aparajithapuri — were built on 0.22 acres of it and sold to buyers.

The Court dismissed the appeals, upheld the cancellation and the restoration of the water body, and held that mixed-residential zoning cannot extinguish the State's rights over poramboke land and water bodies. It directed the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and the Tiruvallur District Collector to allot a vacant, commensurate alternative site to the flat owners' society — preferably within six months — and only thereafter demolish the construction on the 0.22 acres; restoration work on the vacant portion may proceed immediately. Buyers and the bank may pursue civil remedies against the developer, owner and mortgagor, and the State may proceed against erring officers.

Sources: LawTrend, Verdictum, Jurishour and LawChronicle reporting of the judgment.