JUDGMENT :

Devan Ramachandran, J.

The State of Kerala and the Conservator and Custodian of Ecologically Fragile Lands are in appeal, questioning the Final Order of the ‘Court of the Kerala Forest (Vesting and Management of Ecologically Fragile Lands) Tribunal’, Palakkad, (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Tribunal’ for short), in Original Application No.8/2014.

2. Through the impugned order, the learned Tribunal has allowed the Original Application filed by the respondents herein, thus declaring that the application schedule property – extending to 11.018 hectares comprised of in Resurvey No.791/2, 795, 797/2, 793/D2, d7, 793/3 and 797/9 in Pudussery Village – is not an ‘Ecologically Fragile Land’.

3. The genesis of the application made by the respondents is in Ext.B2 letter received by them from the Office of the Divisional Forest Officer, Palakkad (DFO), dated 20.06.2008, informing them that the application schedule property is an ‘Ecologically Fragile Land’ (EFL) and hence, vested with the Government. They, thereupon, filed the above said Application, seeking a declaration, as has now been allowed, on the ground, inter alia, that the property in question is a ‘Forest’, manifest by the