Transport Minister Thomas Chandy on Thursday filed a writ petition in the Kerala High Court challenging the Alappuzha District Collector’s finding against him on the allegations of encroachments of government land and backwaters by the resort owned by him in Alappuzha.
In his petition, the Minister said that the allegations had been levelled with “malicious political intentions” to target him. The report against him had been prepared after conducting ‘unfair’ inquiry by the District Collector, fully discarding the principles of natural justice. She had conducted the inquiry at the intervention of the office of the Minister for Revenue.
He pointed out the findings by the Collector were in contravention of the earlier findings of her predecessor who had settled the very same issues thorough a proceeding in 2014 November.
The then District Collector had conducted a detailed inquiry and found that the alleged reclamation happened to be on the front side gate of the resort and had been carried out as part of strengthening of the adjacent ‘outer bund’, at the request of the Padasekharaka Nellulpadaka Samithies.
The strengthening of the outer bund had reduced the possibility of ‘breaches’, to near zero. In fact it was done at the intervention of then District Collector and under the supervision of the minor irrigation division concerned. Besides, the strengthening of the outer bund would not come under “prohibition on conversion or reclamation of Paddy Land” specified in Sec. 3 (2) of the Kerala Conservation of the Paddy Land and Wet Land Act, 2008.
The Minister also said that he had no connection whatsoever with the properties which were allegedly reclaimed on the side of the Veliyakulam - Zero Jetty Road (Public Road). In fact , they were made by the beneficiary committees formed for constructing the road which was mentioned by the then District Collector in the report.
He also alleged that the Collector had misused her administrative discretion and “played to the gallery”. The petitioner’s name was dragged unnecessarily “presumably due to the conspiracy between those interested quarters and the District Collector.” The Collector had not even verified the revenue records before making such findings against him.
