The Court emphasized the importance of proper data inclusion for land classification under relevant agricultural conservation laws.

JUDGMENT

The above Writ Petition (C) is filed with the following prayers:

"i) To issue a writ of Certiorari, or any other appropriate writ or order, quashing Exhibit-P12, as the same is arbitrary, contrary to the facts on record, and passed without inherent jurisdiction.

ii) To issue a writ of Certiorari to call for the records pertaining to Exhibit-P12 and, after examining its legality, to quash the said order as being fundamentally illegal, arbitrary, and issued without jurisdiction.

iii) To Issue a direction declaring that the petitioner’s property covered under Exhibit-P1 is not a paddy land or wetland within the meaning of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 .

iv). To issue such other relief as this Honourable Court may deem fit in the circumstances of this case.

v) Petitioner also prays that this Honourable Court may be pleased to dispense with the translation of the documents produced in the vernacular language."

[SIC]

2. The abvoe Writ Petition is filed challenging Ext.P12 order passed by the 1^st respondent invoking the powers under Section 13 of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 (‘Act’, for brevity). The short point raised by the petitioner is that the property of the petitioner is not included in the data bank, and therefore the proceedings initiated under of the Act is unsustainable. Hence, this Writ Petition is filed. 3. Heard the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner and the learned Government Pleader.

4. It is true that Ext.P12 is an order which can be challenged by way of a revision before the Government. Usually this Court will not entertain a Writ Petition against Ext.P12 because a revision is maintainable against the same. But, the definite case of the petitioner is that the property is not included in the data bank. A counter afÏdavit is filed by the 1st respondent. It will be better to extract paragraph Nos.4 to 6 of the above counter afÏdavit:

“4) It is submitted that as per the village records the land extent measuring 8.46 acres or 3.4008 hectares in survey number 5/1 is shown as 'nilam’. It is a fact that the said survey number cannot be seen in the data bank. On the other hand, the said extent is there against serial number 14 of the data bank, but without any survey/subdivision mentioned in the respective column. It can also be seen that out of the said extent, approximately 2.0242 hectares were found to be under paddy cultivation during the year 2008. A true copy of the relevant page of Data Bank is produced herewith and marked as Exhibit R1(a).

5) It is submitted that it is not a single case of omission as far as the survey number in the data bank is concerned; one can see that the survey numbers against serial numbers 3 to 15 and 17 to 21 are missing, but all other relevant columns in the data bank have data in it.

6) It is submitted that as per village records, the survey numbers starting from 1/1A, the initial survey number of the village, till 5/1 are all ‘nilam’, except that in survey number 4/1B, which is a road promoboke. As per village records, the survey number 5/1 comes serially at 15^th position. While preparing the data bank the survey numbers of all ‘nilam’ lands in the A register/A register- appendix/BTR were entered therein in the ascending order as that can be seen now. As per the said logic, survey number 6 shall be against serial number 16 (after omitting survey number 4/1B) and survey number 10/2A shall be against serial number 22 and it is just the same in the data bank. As stated earlier, the land extent shown against the serial number 14 in the data bank matches with the total extent of land in survey number 5/1 as per the village records viz 8.46 acres or 3.4008 hectares. The case is the same for other missing survey numbers in the data bank. In other words, it can only be stated as