The issue in this writ petition is whether the road in question leading to the houses of the petitioner and six others is an exclusive private path, meant for the benefit of those seven persons; or a public road vested in the respondent Grama Panchayat, meant for the benefit of the general public.

2. Briefly stated, the petitioner, having a residential building within the limits of the respondent Grama Panchayat, shares a pathway with six others in the locality. The pathway, formed when an area of 71 cents of private land was plotted out by the owner of the property, was only meant to serve the needs of the houses constructed on either side of it.

3. When the petitioner and her neighbours came to know in 2011 that the Panchayat had included the private pathway in its Asset Register around 2011, all of them submitted Exhibit P4 application to the Panchayat seeking the removal of the road from the Asset Register. Though there is no official reply, the then Panchayat secretary and Assistant Engineer of the Grama Panchayat are said to have informed the petitioner and others that the pathway had been removed from the Asset Register. After considerable lapse of time, now the respon