HC verdict stirs up a hornets’ nest
The recent verdict of the Kerala High Court, terming as illegal the takeover by the Government of public lands from three ‘encroachers’ through the Mission Munnar anti-encroachment drive of 2007 is likely to reflect on all the 111 Munnar land-related petitions pending in the High Court, say legal experts, even as the judgement itself has triggered a legal and political controversy.
If the logic of the judgement pronounced by a division bench on July 25 in the three cases is applicable to all these cases, which is quite possible according to experts, the Government will have to forgo thousands of hectares of public land taken over from encroachers in Munnar. In such a situation, the Government will also have to pay huge amounts as compensation.
The division bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur, who has already been transferred to Kolkata High Court, and AM Shafique had ordered restoration of lands taken over from three resorts during the Mission Munnar anti-encroachment drive of 2007 by the then lDF Government and payment of `10 lakh as compensation to one of them for demolishing its building.
“This verdict may reflect on all the remaining Munnar-related cases which are similar in content and nature to the three cases. The Government is going to be a big loser in this legal battle but, there are already allegations that the Congress-led Government is only happy to lose such cases because many in it want to safeguard land-grabbers’ interests”, said a senior High Court lawyer.
The Government is holding a high-level meeting on Tuesday in Kochi to decide on the further course to be followed.
Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash are in agreement with the Court that the lDF regime had shown undue haste in the Mission Munnar drive and had taken over lands without fulfilling legal requirements.
Altogether, 127 petitions had come up in the High Court regarding the Mission Munnar anti-encroachment drive of 2007, praised even internationally as a bold move by the then lDF Government headed by VS Achuthanandan. Of these, 13 cases had gone in favour of the Government.
One of the most crucial observations in the judgement that may go totally against the Government’s interest in many of the remaining 111 cases is that construction is possible with Government permission in public land leased out for cardamom cultivation. legal experts, who suspect the legality of this, say that the petitioners will try to cash in on this point.
At the same time, a controversy has erupted in the legal and political circles of Kerala over the right and authority of Chief Justice Chellur to pronounce such a judgement after receiving her order of transfer to Kolkata just two days before pronouncing the judgement in the three cases in which proceedings had been completed several months ago.
"In the first place, why had the court delayed the verdict so farIJ Secondly, what was the urgency for Justice Manjula Chellur to pass the verdict after she received the transfer orderIJ It is very mysterious," said a lawyer.
This is not the first time a division bench in which Justice Chellur has figured is facing a controversy. She had stirred a hornets' nest on December 6, 2012 when a division bench she headed stayed the order of a single-judge bench quashing the FIR in the sensational land-to-kin case against Achuthanandan within five hours of the quashing order's passage.
Justice Chellur's bench had stayed the order on the basis of the Government's appeal filed within two hours of the single-judge bench's order to which not even a copy of the verdict was attached. The order quashing the FIR was a huge setback to the Congress-led UDF Government which was allegedly determined to trap Achuthanandan in the land scam.