SHAJI PHILIP Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The issue involved in both these writ petitions arises from the Draft Master Plan of Palakkad Municipality and hence, heard and being disposed of together.

(2.) The petitioner in W.P.(C) No. 8450/2018 seeks to include Survey No. 2370/4 as residential zone in the Draft Master Plan for Palakkad Town and to command respondents 3 and 4 to consider Ext. P5 with notice to the petitioner and incorporate the changes suggested in Ext. P5 in the Draft Master Plan for Palakkad Town.

(3.) The petitioner contends that his family held about 7.43 acres of land in Survey No. 2370 of Palakkad II Village in Palakkad Taluk. The father of the petitioner purchased the said property in 1967. In the village records, the property is wrongly shown as wetland (nanja), though the property is a pukka dry land, with trees more than 70 years old standing. At no point of time, paddy was cultivated in the land, contends the petitioner. The mistake has crept in village records in the old survey conducted by the Madras Government in 1912. In the survey conducted by the Government of Kerala in 1984, the property has been correctly classified as paramba. The petitioner, along with his parents and siblings, earlier approached this Court by filing W.P.(C) No. 31204/2010 seeking to correct the mistake. This Court quashed the order of the Revenue Divisional Officer and directed him to pass fresh orders. The RDO, however, rejected the request, whereupon the petitioner and others were compelled to file W.P.(C) No. 6347/2011. In the said writ petition, the respondents admitted that the property is not included in the land data bank and that the property has already the features of a dry land and its description as a wetland in revenue records is only a mistake occurred in the survey. This Court, therefore, quashed the order of the RDO, as per Ext. P1. Consequent to Ext. P1, the property was surveyed and the survey No. 2370 was sub divided into 2370/1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Survey No. 2370/4 has an extent of 7.23 acres and is classified as dry land in revenue records now, contends the petitioner. The property adjoining are also classified as dry land.