SAMEER Vs. DISTRICT COLLECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is aggrieved by Ext.P1 communication by the Revenue Divisional Officer informing that the reclassification sought in respect of 1.29 acres of land in Re- survey No.115/7 and 8 cannot be considered. Going by Ext.P1 the property is described as paddy land. The said aspect is contested by the writ petitioner by making the following averments:- It is stated that property is remaining as the garden land and in all the surrounding areas buildings have been constructed and there is no facility to drain the water collected in the petitioner's property and cultivation of paddy is also impossible. Therefore the property has been remaining practically as a garden land itself. It is also stated that the area is commercially important. The petitioner thus wanted to use the property for commercial activity.

(2.) THE petitioner relies upon dictum laid down by this Court in Shahnaz Shukkoor Vs. Chelannur Grama Panchayat 2009(3) KLT 899 wherein the view taken is that the mere description of an item of property as 'nilam' (pady field) for wet land, in the revenue records, is insufficient to assume that the land cannot be used for any purpose other than those for which a pady field or wet land can be used. It was also held that "the definition of the terms 'paddy field' and 'wet land' in the said Act is sufficient material to hold that the said statute operates on the basis of the facts as they exist on ground realities and not on any quality or type of land, depending on its description in the title document". The same legal position was reiterated by another bench in Praveen Vs. Land Revenue Commissioner 2010 (2) KLT 617.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner therefore sought for a direction to the Revenue Divisional Officer to reconsider the matter in the light of the above factual aspects. It is also submitted that with regard to the property involved in survey No.115/8 the petitioner may be allowed to move appropriate application under the Kerala Land Utilisation Order.