The Revenue Divisional Officer must independently assess land status before rejecting an application to remove land from the Data Bank under the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act.

JUDGMENT

The petitioner has approached this Court aggrieved by Ext.P5 order whereby Form 5 application submitted by him has been rejected by the 2^nd respondent.

2. The petitioner is the owner in possession of

1 Are 21.5 Sqm of property in Sy.No.240/8-21 of Perumanna Village, Malappuram District. The petitioner states that the property will not come within the ambit of paddy land or wet land as defined under the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 (for short, ‘the Act, 2008’). However, the property has been wrongly included in the Data Bank. The petitioner filed Ext.P3 application in Form 5 under Rule 4(d) of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Rules, 2008 (for short, ‘the Rules’) before the 2^nd respondent to remove the said land from the Data Bank. The same has been rejected by the 2^nd respondent by Ext.P5 stating that as per the report of the Agricultural Officer, though there is no cultivation at present, the subject property is paddy land and a house construction is going on there. Further, as per the Data Bank, the property has been partially converted and the reclamation will adversely affect the environment.

3. The petitioner has filed this writ petition challenging Ext.P5 contending inter alia that the same is vitiated by non application of mind and is against the provisions of the Act, 2008 and the binding precedents of this Court.

4. The learned Government Pleader submits that Ext.P5 order has been passed on the basis of the report of the Agricultural Officer and after considering the satellite report.

5. The relevant consideration for inclusion of a property as paddy land or wet land is as to the nature of the property as on the date of coming into force of the Act, 2008. Rule 4 (4E) of the Rules provides that, on receipt of the application in Form 5, the RDO shall call for a report from the Agricultural Officer in the case of paddy land and that of the Village Officer in the case of wetland. Rule 4(4F) provides that, on receipt of the report as above, the RDO shall, if deems necessary, verify the contents of the Data Bank by direct inspection or with the help of satellite images prepared by Central/State Scientific Technological Institutions and pass appropriate orders on the application. On a perusal of Ext.P5, it is evident that, without any independent assessment of the nature of property as on the date of coming into force of the Act, 2008, the Revenue Divisional Officer has solely relied upon the report of the Agricultural Officer to refuse to remove the property from the Data Bank.

6. This Court has held in the decision in Arthasasthra Ventures (India) LLP v. State of Kerala [2022 (7) KHC 591] that, the Revenue Divisional Officer must, while considering an application for removal of a property from the Data Bank consider the question whether the land was a paddy land on the date of coming into force of the Act and also whether the land is suitable for paddy cultivation or not.

7. This Court, in Muraleedharan Nair v.

Revenue Divisional Officer [2023 (4) KLT 270] , has held that when the petitioner seeks removal of his land from the Data Bank, it will not be sufficient for the Revenue Divisional Officer to dismiss the application simply stating that the LLMC has decided not to remove the land from the Data Bank. The Revenue Divisional Officer being the competent authority, has to independently assess the status of the land and come to a conclusion that removal of the land from the Data Bank will adversely affect paddy cultivation in the land in question or in the nearby paddy lands or that it will adversely affect sustenance of wetlands in the area and in the absence of such findings, the impugned order is unsustainable.

8. In Aparna Sasi Menon v. Revenue Divisional Officer [2023 (6) KHC 83] , this Court has