The question decided by a Single Judge of the Kerala High Court in Mariam Beevi v. The Secretary, Athirampuzha Grama Panchayat [WP(C) No. 6384 of 2015], delivered on 10.04.2015, was whether a pathway was an exclusive private path or a public road vested in the respondent Grama Panchayat. The pathway was formed when the owner plotted out an area of 71 cents of private land. It served the houses constructed on either side and led to the houses of the petitioner and six others. It was contended to be an exclusive private path meant for the benefit of those seven persons, while the Panchayat treated it as a public road meant for the general public. The learned Single Judge held that it was a public road.
In the subsequent appeal, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court upheld the judgment of the learned Single Judge: Mariam Beevi v. The Secretary, Athirampuzha Grama Panchayat [2017:KER:6742].
Residents Sought Retention of the Private Road
When the petitioner and her neighbours learned that the Panchayat had included the pathway in its Asset Register, each of them submitted an application to the Panchayat seeking its removal from the Register. No official reply was received. After a considerable lapse of time, the Grama Panchayat began laying interlocking blocks on a part of the road.
A Pathway Connecting to a Public Road Network Becomes Public
The High Court held that a pathway lying within the confines of a house, however sprawling, may be private in character and private in use. However, once a pathway is meant to connect to the property of others, and thereby forms part of a network of roads or paths, it must serve the public purpose of providing access, however short or insignificant its extent and reach may be.
Once a property assumes the character of a road or path with the potential of being a public utility, it ceases to have any exclusivity. Individual interest must yield to the common good.
All Public Roads and Streets Belong to the Government or Local Government
Section 169 of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994 provides that all public roads within the panchayat area vest in the Grama Panchayat. This excludes roads classified by the Government as National Highways, State Highways or major district roads. It also covers bridges, culverts, ditches, dykes, fences on or beside the same, protective devices, and all adjacent land appertaining thereto, not being private property.
References
- Mariam Beevi v. The Secretary, Athirampuzha Grama Panchayat, WP(C) No. 6384 of 2015, Kerala High Court, decided on 10.04.2015 (Single Bench judgment).
- Mariam Beevi v. The Secretary, Athirampuzha Grama Panchayat [2017:KER:6742] (Division Bench judgment).
