A competent authority must ensure no disruption to water flow before rejecting land conversion applications under specific provisions.

JUDGMENT

This writ petition is filed seeking the following reliefs:

“i) a Writ of Certiorari or any other appropriate writ, order or direction to quash Exhibit- P7 order passed by the 7 th respondent;

ii) a Writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction commanding the respondents to allow change of nature of land of the petitioner’s property covered by Ext P1 as applied for by her in Form 6 application dated 30.03.2021;

iii) Any other appropriate writ, order or direction as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit on the facts and in the circumstances of the case and allow this petition with all costs.

iv) It is also prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be pleased to dispense with the production of translation of vernacular documents produced in the writ petition. ”

[SIC]

2. The petitioner filed a Form 6 application, in accordance with the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Rules , 2008, and the same was originally rejected as per Ext.P3. The petitioner challenged the same by filing an appeal, as evident by Ext.P4. Thereafter the appeal was dismissed as per Ext.P5 order. The petitioner challenged Exts.P3 and P5 before this Court by filing WP(C) No.3669/2024. This Court set aside those orders and directed to reconsider the matter as per Ext.P6 judgment. Again the Form-6 application was rejected as per Ext.P7. Aggrieved by the same, this writ petition is filed. 3. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Government Pleader.

4. This Court perused Ext.P6 judgment. It will be better to extract the relevant portion of Ext.P6:

“8. On carefully going through the contents of sub section 2 of Section 27A , it can be seen that, as far as the property having an extent less than 20.2 Ares are concerned, the only condition stipulated is that, while granting permission for conversion, the competent authority shall ensure that, there is no disruption to the free flow of the water to the neighbouring property, if any. Therefore, what is contemplated therein is to impose necessary conditions to ensure that there is no disruption to the free flow of water to the neighbouring paddy lands, if any available and this would not mean that the authority shall be empowered to reject the application as such, without exploring the possibility to permit the reclamation of land by ensuring that there is no disruption as referred to above. Therefore, merely because, there is a water canal on the side of the property, that by itself cannot be a reason to reject the application for conversion as such, without exploring the possibilities as referred to above. In this case, evidently, there is a paddy land adjoining the property and there is a water canal through the side of the property of the petitioner. Therefore, the proper course that could have been adopted by the 3rd respondent or rather the 5th respondent was to impose proper conditions to ensure that no disruption as referred to above is caused to the free flow of water. In this case, while issuing Exts.P3 and P5 orders, instead of carrying out that exercise, the application as such was rejected, which is not contemplated under Sub Section 2 of Section 27A of the Paddy Land Act and therefore, the respondents 2 and 3 have exceeded their jurisdiction while passing the impugned orders.

In such circumstances, I am of the view that, the impugned orders are to be interfered with. Accordingly, this writ petition is disposed of quashing Exts.P3 and P5 with a direction to the 3rd respondent or the authorized officer to reconsider Form-6 application submitted by the petitioner by taking note of the observations made by this Court in this judgment and also imposing such conditions as necessary to ensure that there is no disruption of water flow to the adjoining paddy field. It is clari