The main legal point established in the judgment is that the owner entitled to seek reclamation under the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 is the owner of the paddy land on the date of the Act's commencement, and not a subsequent purchaser.

JUDGMENT :

Shaji P. Chaly, J.

1. This batch of writ petitions have come up before us on a reference made by a learned single Judge of this Court, as per the Order dated 14th day of September, 2020 in W.P.(C) No. 18356 of 2020 and connected cases, and orders subsequently made in the other writ petitions, doubting the correctness of a judgment of a Division Bench of this Court in Yousuf Chalil v. State of Kerala [2019 KHC 5618=2019(4) KLT 540=ILR 2019 4 Ker. 531], and on a consequential reference order dated 1st February, 2022 passed by the Division Bench.

2. The basic question involved in all these writ petitions is, whether a person, who purchased a bit of paddy land after the commencement of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 (hereinafter called 'the Act, 2008), is entitled to prefer an application under Section 5(3)(i) r/w Section 9 of Act, 2008 for permission to reclaim the same, for construction of a residential building.

3. In fact, the said question was answered in the negative by a learned single Judge of this Court in Thankachan v. District Collector [2017 (3) KLT 35], which was followed by a learned single Judge in Yousuf Chalil v. State of Kerala [2019 (4) KLT 33]; however the said Judgment was reversed by a Division Bench in Yousuf Chalil (supra), and held that applications filed by the purchasers of a bit of paddy land, for reclamation for construction of a residential building, after the coming into force of Act, 2008 are also liable to be considered by the statutory authorities under Act, 2008. The petitioners in the instant writ petitions are claiming the benefit of the Division Bench judgment in Yousuf Chalil (supra).

4. In some of the writ petitions, challenge is against the order passed by the primary as well as the appellate authority under the Act, 2008 and in some others, the order passed by the primary authority is under challenge and in yet another set of writ petitions, the applications are pending before the primary authority.

5. As pointed out above, the subject matter arises under the Act, 2008. The term 'paddy land' is defined under Section 2(xii) of the Act, 2008 to mean all types of land situated in the State where paddy is cultivated at least once in a year or is suitable for paddy cultivation but is uncultivated and left fallow, and it includes its allied constructions like bunds, drainage channels, ponds and canals.

6. As per Section 3(1) of the Act, 2008 dealing with ‘prohibition on conversion or reclamation of paddy land’, on and from the date of commencement of the Act, the owner, occupier or the person in custody of any paddy land shall not undertake any activity for the conversion or reclamation of such paddy land, except in accordance with the provisions of the Act. However, sub-Section (2) thereto specifies that nothing contained in sub-section (1) shall apply to the cultivation of any intermediary crops that are cultivated without changing the ecological nature of the paddy land, or the strengthening of the outer bunds for protecting the cultivation.

7. Therefore, on a close analysis of Section 3, it can be seen that after the introduction of the Act, 2008, on and with effect from 12.08.2008, no owner, occupier or the person in custody of any paddy land can undertake any activity for the conversion or reclamation of such paddy land, except in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

8. Section 5 deals with constitution of Local level Monitoring Committee and sub-Section (1) specifies that there shall be a Local Level Monitoring Committee in each Panchayat or Municipality, consisting of the members specified in sub-section (2), for the purpose of monitoring the implementation of the provisions of the Act. To sort out the issue at hand, sub-Section (3) of Section 5, which deals with ‘the power of the Local Level Monitoring Committee’, is significant. Clause (1) thereto specifies that subject to the provisions of the Act, the Committee shall have the power to recommend to