The court affirmed that the application period for claiming disputes under Section 10A begins upon receipt of individual notices, thus safeguarding the rights of small landholders.

J U D G M E N T

Dated this the 1st day of September, 2021 [W.A. Nos. 834, 848, 851, 854, 874, 862, 890, 917, 1038, 1039, 1040, 1041 & 1042 of 2020]

S. Manikumar, CJ Instant writ appeals are filed by the respondents against the common judgment in W.P. (C) No. 17930 of 2015 and connected cases dated 20.03.2020, by which, a learned Single Judge of this Court held as under:-

“11. Having considered the contentions advanced, I notice that Section 10A is a new right granted to small holders to raise a dispute that the property covered by any notification is not Ecologically Fragile Land. The intention of introduction of provision is apparently to give small holders of properties a speedier remedy than the one available under Section 10. The said remedy is available to small holders as on the appointed day, that is, 20.6.2000. In the instant cases, the petitioners are subsequent purchasers of property. However, in many of the cases, the purchases are from owners of land, who themselves were small owners as on the appointed day. If that be so, the contention of the respondents to the effect that the petitioners themselves have to be in possession of the property on the appointed day to avail the benefit under cannot be accepted. A Division Bench of this Court has considered the issue under the Private Forests (Vesting and Assignment) Act, 1971 and held that the subsequent purchaser of the property, who steps into the shoes of the original owner are entitled to claim the reliefs that the original owner would have been entitled to under that Act. In the above view of the matter, in those cases where the petitioners had purchased property having an extent of 2 Hectares or less from holders of property who themselves had only that extent of land as on the appointed day, the petitioners would be entitled to claim that their applications under are liable to be considered. 12. The further question which arises for consideration is with regard to whether small holders are liable to make the applications within six months from the date of the notification. In the instant cases, it is the specific case of the petitioners that they were unaware of the notification and that they had preferred their applications within six months from the date on which they received the individual notices under Section 3 (2). In the facts and circumstances of the cases and taking note of the fact that provides a remedy in favour of small holders and since (2) is couched in mandatory terms, I am of the opinion that the contention that the applications have to be filed within six months from the date of notification cannot be accepted. The petitioners having filed the applications within six months from the date on which the individual notices were served on them, would be entitled to the consideration of the dispute raised by them under .

In the above view of the matter, W. P. (C). Nos. 17930, 16869, 9366, 17533, 17536, 18110, 14633, 14627, 14611, 14254, 13992, 14733, 14734 of 2015 and 34701 of 2010 are allowed. The impugned orders are set aside. There will be a direction to the respondents to consider the applications preferred by the petitioners under Section 10A of the EFL Act. The petitioners shall produce the documents on the basis of which they claim title before the appropriate authority. Status quo, as on today, with regard to the lands in question will be maintained for a period of three months to enable the custodian to take an appropriate decision with regard to the interim arrangement to be maintained till the dispute is appropriately resolved.”

2. The reliefs sought for by the respondents/writ petitioners in W.P.

(C) Nos. 14254, 14611, 14733, 14633, 14627, 13992 & 14734 of 2015 are extracted below:

(i) To call for the records leading to and pursuant to the notice bearing No.3967/00 dated 20.11.2014 (Exhibit P1) issued by the Divisional Forest Officer (D.F.O), South Wayanad Division, Kalpetta (respondent No.2); Exhibit-P2 statutory application dated 8.