Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram and the Chief Secretary informed the court that the officers have been taking necessary steps to comply with the court order in 2019. The process of collecting the required data as stipulated by the court has been completed, informed the Advocate General.

According to the petitioner Chief Secretary, a list of all water bodies in all Thaluks across the state, their survey numbers and the respective area have been compiled in a Compact Disc (CD) which will be produced before the court. Moreover, the list of such water bodies has also been uploaded to the Tamil Nilam Website of the TN Government.

Therefore, the petitioner requested the court to dispense with his personal appearance. Taking into consideration the submissions made by the petitioner, the first bench of Acting Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice PD Audikesavalu noted in the order as follows:

"Taking into consideration the submissions made by the learned Advocate General, since the details of all the water bodies are now hosted in the website to indicate not only the water bodies, but also their respective survey numbers and even the area, we dispense with the personal appearance of the petitioner herein on 16.12.2021 and this petition is ordered."

The court has also asked the state to produce the compact disk (CD) containing the comprehensive details of waterbodies tomorrow when the court takes up water body encroachment cases.

On December 8, the court had directed the personal appearance of Chief Secretary while hearing a batch of writ petitions challenging illegal encroachment of water bodies, including a suo moto petition registered pursuant to the apex court directions and connected matters.

When the court ordered the personal appearance of Chief Secretary and directed compilation of a list of water bodies within the next one week, it had also recalled the directions issued back in January 2019 as a first step in dealing with illegal encroachments.

In the said order dated 2^nd January, 2019, paragraph 8 (i) –(iii) entailed a list of directions to the Chief Secretary and District Collectors to tackle water body encroachment. The gist of directions was as follows;

• An Action Taken Report to be filed by the Chief Secretary explaining the progress made in implementing recommendations for rectifying the shortcomings of encroachment eviction,
• Collectors of respective Districts to prepare a list of lands identified as water bodies in their revenue records and file an action taken report
• The Chief Secretary, after collecting necessary data from the concerned Departments and Collectors of the various Districts, should file a Report showing the list of water bodies as found in the revenue records of the State.

In the January 2019 order, it was also instructed by the Court that the said reports shall be filed within 11^th February, 2019.

Case Title: The State of Tamil Nadu v. KK Ramesh & Others

Case No: WMP.No.28411 of 2021 in W.P.(MD) No.22163 of 2018

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