The Revenue Department has suspended its controversial decision to allow a private company based in Tamil Nadu to convert 15 acres of paddy land at Kunnathunadu in Ernakulam district to prime real estate.
The move came against the backdrop of harsh public criticism that the department had applied double standards by ordering an anti-corruption inquiry into the illegal conversion of 25 cents of wetland at Choonikkara village while ignoring local resistance against the allegedly unlawful reclamation of a vast expanse of paddy land by a private entity in neighbouring Muvattupuzha municipality.
Officials said the government had sought legal opinion in the matter and it might be a precursor to a possible Vigilance inquiry. They said the Revenue Department had reportedly consulted the Advocate General.
Officials privy to the case said the Revenue Divisional Officer, RDO, Muvattupuzha, had flagged up the company's attempt to convert the land into a saleable property in 2017 illegally.
In a note to the District Collector, Ernakulam, the officer had pointed out that government surveyors had designated the tract of land as paddy field in its map-based data bank of paddy fields and wetlands in Kerala. The officer had relied on a contemporary cartographic record to reach his conclusion.
Consequently, the Ernakulam Collector issued a notice to the private firm and conducted a hearing in November last. He found the firm had illegally reclaimed a sizeable part of the paddy field and ordered his officers to restore the land to its old state. He also ordered a freeze on any attempt to sell or transfer the property in pieces or as a whole.
In January, the firm challenged the District Collector's order at the government Secretariat level. The Revenue Department requested the Law Department to vet the application. The allegation against the Revenue Department was that it had not waited for the Law Department's recommendation. Instead, in a case of suspicious haste and without due process had cancelled the Collector's order and allowed the company to go ahead with the reclamation.
