The Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in Rebecca George W/o George vs Local Level Monitoring Committee (2025:KER:93926) firmly restricts the powers of the Local Level Monitoring Committee (LLMC) from arbitrarily including “Purayidam” (dry land/garden land) in the Data Bank as paddy land or wetland, while reaffirming the constitutional right to property under Article 300A of the Constitution of India, read with the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008.
Key Findings of the Decision:
- The LLMC cannot include land classified as Purayidam (dry land) in the Basic Tax Register (BTR) into the Data Bank without legal justification; arbitrary inclusion of dry land into the Data Bank is invalid in the absence of evidence of conversion or encroachment.
- Stop memos issued under Section 12 of the Act are invalid unless the land in question is formally designated as wetland or paddy land in the Data Bank maintained under the Paddy and Wetland Act.
- The ruling reaffirms constitutional property rights under Article 300A, protecting landowners against unauthorized restrictions on the use and enjoyment of their land by local authorities.
- Landowners seeking reclassification or conversion must follow the prescribed legal procedures under the Act and cannot be subjected to unilateral or on-the-spot reclassification by the LLMC.
Ultimately, this ruling reinforces the protection of land already converted to Purayidam from improper reclassification as paddy land or wetland by local authorities acting without statutory formalities or due procedure.
