The State government has no power to suspend the decisions of the Munnar and Devikulam panchayats to use company's bungalows for tourism purposes, according to a reply affidavit filed by the Kanan Devan Hills Plantations Company Private Limited in the Kerala High Court.
It was filed in response to an affidavit filed by the State government asserting its right to interfere with the decision of the panchayats.
The affidavit said that the government had not pointed out any illegality regarding the issue of licence granted for a specific purpose. The government had no jurisdiction to interfere with the decisions of the panchayats. It had not pointed out any particular violation of lease agreement. There was lack of substance in the stand of the government. Nothing legally prevented the company from using the bungalows lying vacant in plantations for tourism purposes when admittedly the entire plantation activities continued. The government' s allegations of the company violating the Kanan Devan Hills (Resumption of Lands ) Act (KDH) and the Kerala Land Reforms Act were absolutely unsustainable, the affidavit pointed out.
The land of the company was squarely governed by the special enactment namely, KDH Act. The Kerala Land Reforms Act was not applicable to the land held by the company. In fact, the land was held under “a permanent, perpetual grant and not under a lease.” Therefore, the allegation of violating lease conditions was totally unsustainable. The Land Reform Act could not be made applicable to the tenancies in respect of plantations in excess of 30 acres
The government had stated that the lease deed created in favour of the newly formed company in 2005 was in violation of the Kerala Land Reforms Act. The transfer of the original lease to the Kanan Devan Hill Produce Company to the Tata Tea Limited too was invalid, as that violated the Companies Act and Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA), 1973, the government had stated.
RBI permission
Countering the allegations, the company said that it had obtained the permission of the Reserve Bank of India. In fact, the land had been restored to the Tata-Finlay Limited by the government, it said.
The government had said that the Kanan Devan Hills (Resumption of lands) Act provided for the assignment of the entire area resumed by the government for agrarian purposes. The actions of the company in making transfer and conversion of land and buildings for purposes other than agriculture were in violation of the Act and land laws. It had come to the notice of the state government that there had been large-scale violation of lease agreement by converting the bungalows in the leased land into resorts/home stays by the company, the affidavit said. The property held by the KDHP company/Tata Tea Limited was the government land.
Judge recuses
Meanwhile, Justice P.N. Ravindran recused himself from hearing the petition filed by the company challenging the government order suspending the decisions of the panchayats when it came up for hearing on Thursday.
