Written by: Editor, Hello Asia News, Canada
For more than three decades, SASTRA University has stood as a troubling example of an educational institution that refuses to acknowledge its wrongdoing, engaging in prolonged legal battles not to correct an injustice, but to retain one.
This is not a fight to protect education.
It is a fight to normalise illegality under the respectable label of “educational service.”
An educational institution is not merely a place where degrees are issued. It is expected to function as a moral and ethical reference point for society—demonstrating respect for the law, public accountability, and civic responsibility. When such an institution knowingly occupies government land—land that belongs to the people—and then seeks judicial protection by invoking its educational status, it undermines the very principles it claims to teach.
At this point, a fundamental clarification is necessary.
Government land is not government-owned in a private sense. It is public property. It belongs to the people.
The protection of public land is therefore not only a legal issue but a democratic obligation tied to the safeguarding of collective public assets.
According to official records, beginning in the 1980s, more than 31 acres of government land, forming part of a larger 58-acre parcel, were used without legal entitlement. This was not an administrative error or a misunderstanding. The institution is managed by individuals who are highly educated, legally informed, and administratively experienced. To knowingly build permanent infrastructure on public land and later attempt to shield that occupation under the banner of education reflects a serious ethical failure.
It must also be stated without ambiguity: SASTRA University is not a charitable organisation providing free education. It is a private higher education institution that charges substantial tuition fees. In that context, the argument that continued occupation of public land serves “public interest” becomes increasingly untenable. How does education conducted on people’s land, taken without consent, transform illegality into public service?
In 2018, the Madras High Court ruled in favour of the State. Yet the verdict was not enforced with the administrative resolve it demanded. During 2021–22, field inspections, official notices, and demolition orders were issued. Still, through prolonged litigation, government action was repeatedly stalled, rendering enforcement ineffective.
The Ethics of “Alternative Land”
Equally disturbing is the university’s proposal that the Government of Tamil Nadu should accept an alternative parcel of land—of equal size and claimed value—arranged by the institution itself, in exchange for legitimising the original illegal occupation.
In other words, this institute is fighting to obtain legal authorisation for its illegal activity—a direct attempt to convert wrongdoing into a legal entitlement. This proposition is ethically indefensible.
Public property cannot be treated as a negotiable commodity, nor can an illegal act be retrospectively sanctioned through private bargaining. Offering alternative land after unlawful occupation is not restitution—it is an attempt to normalise illegality. In moral terms, it is akin to a thief saying, “I will make amends by giving you a replacement after the fact,” while the original theft remains unpunished. The crime itself does not vanish.
For a university—an institution meant to teach ethics, law, and civic responsibility—to advance such a proposal reflects not pragmatism, but ethical collapse.
On January 9, 2026, the Madras High Court again stated clearly that government land encroached upon for decades must be recovered for public use, and that being an educational institution does not legitimise illegality. Yet within days, an interim stay from the Supreme Court followed, prolonging uncertainty.
This leads to an uncomfortable but unavoidable question.
Across India, thousands of poor and working-class families have seen their homes demolished despite decades of residence—dismissed with a single word: encroachment.
The law was applied swiftly.
The consequences were irreversible.
But when a powerful educational institution occupies public land, a different narrative emerges—students, public welfare, alternative arrangements.
Is this the equal application of the law?
Or does influence reshape justice?
Tamil Nadu often takes pride in its ethical tradition rooted in the Thirukkural, which teaches “Aram” (pronounced uh‑rum). Aram broadly translates to righteousness, moral duty, ethical conduct, and justice—values closely aligned with the principles of fairness and accountability expected in democratic societies such as Canada. If Aram truly guides public life, it cannot be selectively applied only when convenient or politically safe.
When an educational institution occupies public land belonging to the people and succeeds in weakening the State’s ability to reclaim it, the issue is no longer academic. It becomes a matter of power, privilege, and public accountability.
Equally concerning is the prolonged silence of political parties, civil society organisations, and social movements that would otherwise be expected to speak out in defence of public interest.
This is not an attack on education.
It is a call to protect public property, uphold equality before the law, and preserve ethical standards in public life.
If an exception is granted today, it becomes a precedent tomorrow. And the cost of that precedent will not be borne by institutions—it will be borne by the public and by future administrations.
Education cannot stand above the law.
And institutions that claim to teach ethics—Aram—must be held to those same ethical standards.