The Madras High Court underlining the importance of open spaces in Indian cities on Friday, passed an order that the character of an open space reservation (OSR) land is only to serve a public purpose, and it cannot be changed and made use of for some other purpose. The ruling came against the Chennai Corporation which tried to reclaim 700 grounds of OSR land in the city.

The division bench consisted of Justice D Murugesan and Justice Vinod K Sharma, who rejected the writ appeal filed by K Rajamani of Coimbatore and a couple others against a single judge order.

They stated that the space that has been earmarked for public purpose cannot be altered and used for any other purpose and, especially, it cannot be de reserved and used for housing plots. Therefore, the single judge had correctly quashed the order of the government de reserving the land for the intention of developing housing plots.

Around 54 plots on approximately 6 acres of land were bought by members of the Alamunagar Residents Welfare Association in Coimbatore. The land was supposed to be utilised for a public purpose, like establishing a park or to maintain certain wells and not for housing plots.