The petitioner is the owner of 0.0202 Ares of land in Old Survey No.152/6 of Irinjalakuda Kara, Mukundapuram Taluk, Thrissur District. With a view to putting up a building, for commercial purposes, in the said property, the petitioner approached the 2nd respondent Municipality with an application for building permit. The said application was however rejected by the 2nd respondent, stating that the land in question was described as 'Nilam' in the Basic Tax Register. Ext.P3 is the order rejecting the application preferred by the petitioner. In the writ petition, the petitioner impugns Ext.P3 order, and seeks a direction to the 2nd respondent to consider his application afresh, taking note of the actual nature of the land.

2. When the writ petition came up for admission, this Court called for a report from the 3rd respondent, who is the Convener of the Local Level Monitoring Committee [LLMC], with regard to the lie and nature of the property and specifying whether the property in question was included in the draft/notified data bank. A report has since been filed by the 3rd respondent, which shows that, in the draft data bank, the property is included as converted land, and the land is not liable to be included in the data bank as paddy land or wetland.

Taking note of the said report, and the judgments of this Court and the Supreme Court in Adani Infrastructure & Developers Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Kerala - [2015 (1) KLT 651]; Local Level Monitoring Committee under Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and WetLand Act, 2008 v. Ali Akbar - [2015 (1) KLT 906]; Revenue Divisional Officer, Fort Kochi and Others v. Jalaja Dileep and Another - [2015 (2) KHC 109] and Local Level Monitoring Committee Constituted under Section 5 of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 in Kizhakkambalam Grama Panchayat v. Mariumma - [2015 (2) KLT 516], by which, it is now settled that it is only if the property is included in the land data bank, and is described as 'Nilam' in the Basic Tax Register, that the provisions of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and WetLand Act, 2008 [hereinafter referred to as the 2008 Act'], will apply, and otherwise it is the Kerala Land Utilization Order, 1967 [hereinafter referred to as the 'KLU Order'] that will regulate the conversion of lands, the writ petition is disposed with the following directions:

(i) The LLMC, of which the 3rd respondent is the Convener, shall forthwith exclude the property belonging to the petitioner from the draft land data bank, and issue a certificate to that effect to the petitioner, within one week from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment.

(ii) On receipt of the certificate from the LLMC, the petitioner may apply to the authorities under the KLU Order, for the necessary permission to convert the land for other uses. On receipt of such an application from the petitioner, the authorities under the KLU Order shall pass orders on the said application within a period of one month from the date of receipt of the application.

(iii) The 2nd respondent Municipality shall, on the petitioner producing the certificate issued by the LLMC, as also an order obtained under the KLU Order, consider the application submitted by the petitioner for building permit, afresh, in the light of the said certificate and order, and de hors the description of the property in the Basic Tax Register. The 2nd respondent shall pass fresh orders, as directed, within a period of one month from the date of receipt of the documents from the petitioner. To enable the 2nd respondent to do so, I quash Ext.P3 order of the 2nd respondent.

(iv) The petitioner shall, on receipt of the certificate from the LLMC, and the order permitting conversion under the KLU Order, produce copies of the same before the Land Tax Authorities, for causing a fresh assessment and consequential change in classification of the land in the Basic Tax Register.