The Sivagiri Estate property dispute case took a turn on Tuesday with the Madras high court, which was hearing the claims of the legal heirs of the descendents of Pandiya Dynasty, sending one claimant, N Jaganathan, to jail for three months and imposing a fine of Rs 50,000 each on him and his counsel, V Chockalingam, for contempt of court.
A division bench, comprising Justice P Jyothimani and Justice M Duraiswamy, however, suspended the jail term alone for a period of one week after it was informed that Jagannathan was a “sick person”, but said that the fine must be paid within a week.
Jagannathan claims to possess a will executed in his favour by the then zamindar of Sivagiri estate, Varaguna Rama Pandiya Chinnathambiar, on May 16, 1992. Sivagiri estate is a remnant of the ancient Pandiya empire.
“It is clear that a fraud on the court has been played by both. The counsel would only say that he was taking earnest steps for procuring the LOA from the foreign country,” the division bench said.
The bench directed the registry to mark a copy of the order to the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and said, “We leave it to the Bar Council to take appropriate action at its discretion." |
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