The Court did not spare the University the label of encroacher, but it was troubled by what the State wanted done about it. Tamil Nadu insisted on eviction, tearing down a college building to recover land meant for an open-air prison. The University had offered alternate land instead. Why, the Court asked, demolish and rebuild when the State needs only open land, which is on offer? Calling the State’s stance ‘obstinate’, the Bench pressed it to take alternate land, or its market value as a penalty, and asked how a prison project conceived in 1985 could still be waiting on this one plot.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has asked the State of Tamil Nadu to consider accepting alternate land, in lieu of the government land said to have been encroached upon by SASTRA University, rather than insisting on the University’s eviction, observing that the disputed land is being used for an educational institution and that the balance of equities called for a solution that did not destroy it [Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy v. State of Tamil Nadu].
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana was hearing the University’s plea against a Madras High Court order that had dismissed its challenge to the government’s refusal of an alternate-land offer and to an eviction notice; the High Court order had been stayed by the Supreme Court in January.
The balance the Court drew
The Court was candid that the character of the occupier weighed with it. Had the land been used for a commercial purpose, it indicated, it would have ordered eviction without hesitation; it was the use of the land for education that gave it pause.
“If someone was running a resort there, or running a commercial complex, or having a shopping mall there, or having immoral or illegal activity there, we would have thrown them out. If the land is being used by a University for academic purposes, providing quality education in the state, that is the only factor weighing in our mind… we were thinking of something that will send a very strong message to everyone and at the same time, we will save an institute because that is serving the public.”
The CJI outlined the options: the State could dispossess the University, or ask it to pay today’s market price for the land, or identify a plot of the State’s choosing which the University would purchase for it. Even if the market price were five or ten times higher, the Court said, the University could be asked to pay it, so that the arrangement carried a punitive edge and sent a message to encroachers, while sparing an institution serving the public.
‘Obstinate’, and a project stalled since 1985
The State resisted. Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi and the Additional Advocate General submitted that the open-air jail could not be set up because of the pending litigation, that the University had continued construction even during the case, and that the alternate land offered was less valuable, fragmented and poorly accessible. Accepting the University’s offer, the State argued, would set a bad precedent that put a premium on encroachments.
The Court was unpersuaded by the insistence on demolition. The State, it observed, was pressing for a course that involved tearing down a constructed building and rebuilding elsewhere, when for an open-air prison it needed only open land, which was being offered.
“You are unhappy in leaving that land and taking that open land though you require open land only. You don’t require a constructed building. That is something very surprising!”
The Bench also questioned the State’s failure to implement the open-air jail project, said to have been conceived in 1985, merely because the earmarked land had become tied up in litigation. If a hospital for the poor were held up by a land dispute, the CJI asked, would the State wait fifty years rather than build it elsewhere. Terming the State’s attitude “strange and obstinate”, the Court said it had expected the State to come forward gracefully with an option under which it would lose neither land nor money.
Precedent, and the safeguards
When the State, through Senior Advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Jaideep Gupta, cautioned that the approach might become a precedent for future encroachers, the Court agreed that its order must be framed and worded so as not to become a bad precedent, and stressed that this was why it was inclined to impose the market price, or a multiple of it, as a penalty. It also directed that any alternate land identified must meet the project’s requirements, not be compromised on the norms for the prison, and, notably, not be adjacent to the University, so that an open-air prison would not come up next to an educational institution. Senior Advocate Rakesh Dwivedi sought time to return with instructions.
Why it matters
The exchange illustrates a court trying to reconcile two public interests: deterring encroachment on government land, and not destroying a functioning educational institution in the process. The Court was clear that the University’s occupation was unauthorised, and that the University had lost earlier rounds of litigation, including on title, up to the Supreme Court; its search was for a remedy that punished the encroachment without wasting a built asset serving students. The device it favoured, requiring the University to pay the market value, or a multiple, of the land, or to purchase equivalent land for the State, is designed to make the encroacher pay a real price while leaving the college standing.
The Court’s sharper words were reserved for the State’s conduct. Its scepticism about why a 1985 prison project remained unbuilt for want of this particular plot, when open land was on offer and other sites presumably existed, reflects a broader judicial impatience with public projects stalled on a single point of friction. At the same time, the Court was alive to the risk of rewarding encroachment, which is why it emphasised the penal character of the payment and the need to word its order so that it would not be cited by future encroachers.
Nothing has been finally decided. The State has sought time to take instructions on whether it will accept alternate land or its value, and the Court has laid down the parameters, comparable land meeting the prison’s norms, not adjacent to the University, with any shortfall in value made good, within which a settlement might be reached. Whether the matter ends in an exchange, a payment or, failing agreement, eviction, will depend on the State’s response on the next date.
Case Title: Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy (SASTRA) v. The State of Tamil Nadu [SLP(C) Nos. 2359-2360/2026]
Bench: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana, Supreme Court of India
Appearing: Senior Advocate C.S. Vaidyanathan for the University; Senior Advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Jaideep Gupta and Additional Advocate General Haripriya Padmanabhan for the State
Status: Court asked Tamil Nadu to consider alternate land or its market value instead of eviction; State sought time for instructions. Nothing finally decided.