The court emphasized the necessity of due process before converting a private road into a public road, underscoring the importance of hearing affected parties.

JUDGMENT

The above writ petition is filed seeking to quash Exts.P10 to P13, P16 and P17.

2. Brief facts necessary for the disposal of the case are as follows: Petitioner’s father was in possession and enjoyment of 26.405 cents of land comprised in survey Nos.210, 211 and 208 of Thycaud Village, Thiruvananthapuram District obtained as per Ext.P1 settlement deed. As per the above settlement deed, a 10 feet private road is provided for ingress and egress to the scheduled properties, from the drainage road to the scheduled properties. It is mentioned in Ext.P1 settlement deed that the extent of the private road is included in the A schedule allotted to the father of the petitioner for fiscal purpose and only two persons are allowed to use the said private road and the said road ends in the property of the father of the petitioner. Thereafter the respective parties have effected mutation of the properties and they are enjoying the same. Petitioner’s father had three children, including the petitioner, Chithralekha and Jayachandran. Subsequently in 1993, as per Ext.P2 settlement deed an extent of 6.305 cents of land comprised in survey No.210/1 of Thycaud Village was given to his son Jayachandran and 7.100 cents of land comprised in survey No.211 and 210/1 of Thycaud Village was given to his daughter Chithralekha. As per Ext.P2 settlement deed, the right to use the 10 feet private road was also given to Jayachandran as evident from the description and the plan attached to the said deed and the abovesaid road is mentioned in Ext.P1 settlement deed also, which is the only way to the house of the father of the petitioner. As per Ext.P2, the property given to Smt. Chithralekha is having direct road frontage to drainage road and no right had been conferred on Smt. Chitralekha in the road shown in the sketch attached to Ext. P2 deed. In 1995, as per Ext.P3 settlement deed No.3548 of 1995 petitioner’s father had given an extent of 13 cents of land along with the building situated therein comprised in survey No.208 of Thycaud Village to the petitioner. As per Ext.P3 all rights of the father over the property including the right in the private road were transferred to the petitioner. Thereafter petitioner had effected mutation of the property and was paying land tax and staying in the above house along with her husband, son and aged mother. Later resurvey was conducted in Thycaud Village and resurvey No. 54 was assigned to the property of the petitioner and resurvey No.47 was assigned to the property of the brother of the petitioner and the re-survey number assigned to the private road is 49. As per the resurvey records, the total extent of land in the possession of the petitioner is 6.95 Ares and that of the private road is 0.64 Ares. After the resurvey, in the survey records, the private road stands in the names of one Ramachandran Nair, petitioner herein and Chithralekha as evident from Exts.P4 and P4(a). In 2014, Mr. Jayachandran, brother of the petitioner, has sold 4.91 cents of land comprised in resurvey No. 47 (old survey No 210/1) of Thycaud Village along with the right to use the 10 feet way to the 8^th respondent as per Ext.P5 sale deed No1206 of 2014 of Chala SRO. A perusal of Ext.P5 would reveal that it is specifically stated in the deed that the extent of the property transferred is excluding the land given for the road. The 8^th respondent thereafter started construction of a house in the property covered by Ext.P5. Thereafter, the 8^th respondent started creating various problems to the petitione