A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday directed the State government to pay a provisional compensation of Rs.10 lakh to the Cloud9 Resorts whose 11 buildings at Chinnakkanal had been demolished as part of the Munnar eviction drive launched in 2007 by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government.
The Bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice A.M. Shaffique directed the State government to restore the land taken over by the government to the resort owner within a month.
Directives The directives were issued while allowing a writ petition filed by the resort owner challenging the order issued in 2007 by the then Munnar District Collector taking over the land and demolishing the building allegedly on the ground of encroachment and also the order of the Land Revenue Commissioner.
Awarding a provisional compensation, the court observed that right to property was a constitutional and legal right.
It could not be taken away by the ‘‘abuse of power.” Such abuse of power should be curbed and compensated as otherwise it would result in chaos.
The court further made it clear that the petitioner could agitate for getting full compensation before the civil court concerned.
The court held that the entire proceedings initiated to takeover the land were bad in law. The court pointed out that when the parties to the grant of land were governed by the terms of grant, the District Collector had no authority to exercise his power to take action against the petitioner under the Cardamom Rules.
Therefore, the jurisdiction exercised by the Collector was without any authority of law. If the assignee had complied with all the required conditions under the law, the parties were bound by the terms of the grant either by way of an agreement or condition for Patta.
Such condition or terms in the agreement formed part of the contract between the parties. If there was any dispute regarding the contractual terms, the matter had to be resolved by a civil court. Besides, the Patta (title) had been granted by the Special Tahsildar under the Land Assignment Act. No action could be taken to resume the land without cancelling the Pattas.
The court observed that when a property was being taken over after passing illegal orders, the holder of the property was entitled to get compensation. In fact, the condition for grant did not prohibit construction of buildings in the land obtained under the Land Assignment Act. However, when the land was given for cardamom cultivation, construction activities could be undertaken only with the permission of the government. The only condition in the assignment deed was that the trees should not be cut and removed. In the instant case, there was no material other than the bald statement by the government to prove that the petitioner had cut and removed trees.
Court ruling mysterious: VS
The High Court judgment on evicting the encroachments in Munnar is mysterious, Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan has said.
Mr. Achuthanandan said in a statement here on Friday that Chief Justice Manjula Chellur, who heard the arguments on three major encroachment cases eight months back, passed the judgement just before being transferred out of the State. This sounds mysterious. This was in favour of the encroachers. The government should go in appeal against the verdict. If needed, he would move the Supreme Court, he said. During the tenure of the LDF, the Cabinet had decided to evict encroachments, opened a special office at Munnar, and appointed Suresh Kumar as special officer. As many as 92 illegal constructions were demolished and 16,000 acres of land recovered in two months.
As many as 125 writ petitions were filed in the High Court in connection with the eviction process. No verdict was passed against the government in any of the cases.
The court even refused to intervene in the eviction.
