Court emphasized the importance of considering access rights of property owners in local governance decisions.

JUDGMENT

This writ petition is filed with the following prayers:

i. issue a Writ of Mandamus, or any other appropriate writ, order, or direction, directing the respondents not to proceed with the construction blocking the primary access to the petitioner’s property on the panchayat road, without affording an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner.

ii. issue a Writ of Mandamus, or any other appropriate writ, order, or direction, directing the respondents to consider and dispose of Ext.P4 representation within a reasonable time fixed by this Hon’ble Court.

iii. issue a direction dispensing with the filing of the English translations of the documents in vernacular language.

iv. issue such other writ, order, or direction, as this Hon’ble Court may deem fit and proper, in the facts and circumstances of the case. ”[SIC]

2. The petitioner filed this writ petition apprehending that, a gymnasium is going to be constructed by the Panchayat denying access to the petitioner from his property to the road.

3. Now a counter affidavit is filed by the 1^st and 2^nd respondents alone. It will be better to extract paragraph 6 to 9 of the Counter Affidavit;

“6. The averment in paragraph 2 to the effect that, petitioner is enjoying access to its property from Panchayath road from both sides is not correct. There exist proper access from the property to Panchayath Road only from Eastern Side of the property of petitioner. As far as Southern side of the property of petitioner is concerned, there existed a Vadam vali track for long period and various Vadam vali competitions and training are held there for quite long time. Various event including Keralalosavam is held on the said Vadam vali track. True copy of the photograph of KeralsosavamVadam vali competition held on 30.11.2024 is produced herewith and marked as Exhibit R1(a)

7. The averment in the Writ Petition that, an open gymnasium is being constructed blocking the access of petitioner from Southern side is not correct. The open gymnasium exclusively for women is being constructed on the opposite side of the road (on the southern side of the road, property of the petitioner is on the northern side of the Panchayath road). A rough sketch of the area prepared by the Overseer of Aliparapmba Grama Panchayath dated NIL is produced herewith and marked as Exhibit R1(b)

8. The open gymnasium is being constructed on the opposite side of the road without any hindrance to petitioner. The averment to the contrary in the Writ Petition is false and baseless.

9. Further, as is evident from Exhibit R1(b)

sketch, the road is only having width of 7.2 meters while there exist 10 meters additional width of 10 meters on the southern side of the road and 8.8 meters on the northern side which borders with the property of petitioner.”

4. From the above, it is clear that, the Gymnasium is going to be constructed on the other side of the road and it is conceded that the construction is completed. The present grievance of the petitioner is that, as per the counter affidavit, it is stated that, a vadam vali track is going to be renovated which will also block the petitioner’s access to the road. The petitioner also takes me through the information received under Right to Information Act as evident by Ext. P6. In Ext. P6, it is stated that, the vadam vali track is not constructed by the Panchayat. The submission of the petitioner is that, the Panchayat is unnecessarily spending money for a vadam vali track which is not owned by the Panchayat . I am of the considered opinion that, this aspect is to be considered by the Panchayat. The petitioner can be allowed to file a fresh representation narrating the facts. If such a representation is filed, there can be a direction to consider