Petitioner is the owner in possession of 8.9 Ares of land comprised in Sy.No.423/9B2 of Thirumarady Village, Muvattupuzha Taluk, obtained by virtue of Ext.P1 settlement deed. According to the petitioner, the aforesaid property is recorded as ‘nilam’ in the BTR and ‘converted land’ in Ext.P2 Data Bank. Accordingly, the petitioner has filed Ext.P3 application in Form 5 before the 1st respondent/Revenue Divisional Officer [RDO], and the RDO rejected the same by Ext.P4 order. In Ext.P4 it is stated that as per the report of the Agricultural Officer, the property was converted after 2008 and the petitioner was issued with stop memo and therefore, the LLMC has recommended not to exclude the property from the Data Bank.

2. The petitioner has filed this writ petition challenging Ext.P4 contending inter alia that the same is vitiated by non application of mind and is against the provisions of the Act, 2008 and the binding precedents of this Court. It is also contended that the RDO should have called for a report from the Kerala State Remote Sensing and Environment Centre, Thiruvananthapuram [for short, ‘the KSRSEC’] to ascertain the status of the land as on 12.08.2008, the date of co