Karuna Estate: revenue dept for cancelling all mutations

The Revenue Department that probed the controversial Karuna Estate issue has recommended cancelling the mutation of all excess land in their possession as per the Kerla Land Reforms Act. The land Board Secretary in the report also calls for retrieving all illegally possessed lands.

In the report, Land Board secretary P Mary Kutty has recommended surveying 3129 acres of land in the region for tracing the exact area of land that is vested with the government after 1970.

The Revenue Divisional Officers should be directed to cancel the mutations of all excess lands immediately, the secretary said in the report that was submitted to the government recently.

Apart from this, she also recommends a high level team comprising of Revenue, Survey, Forest and Registration to trace the excess land that has to be vested with the government. And another special team should be constituted with officials from the Survey, Forest and Revenue for surveying the whole region.

Source: The New Indian Express

http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/352055/The-New-Indian-Express-Thiruvananthapuram/08-10-2014#page/5/1

Title deeds come under scanner

The Land Tribunal Pattayams (Title deeds or Purchase Certificates), which are only issued for cultivating tenants but now in possession of various companies, trusts, institutions and individuals, have come under the scanner with the State Land Board seeking a report from all the Land Tribunals at the earliest with respect to such Title deeds. It is estimated that L T Pattayams have been issued to more than 50,000 acres of land which are now under the illegal possession of certain trusts, institutions, companies and individuals.

The Land Board stepped into action after Chandraprabha Trust stated that it would provide 50 acres of the 105 acres that it held for the medical college in Wayanad. It was found that the Trust had got ''LT Pattayam or ’purchase certificate'' for the land that is only given for cultivating tenants as per the Kerala Land reforms Act. As per the land reforms Act, purchase certificate is issued only to natural Human beings and not to companies or trusts.

In most cases, LT Pattayms have been given for about 100, 500, 1000 acres of land respectively, which exceed the ceiling limit as stipulated in the KLR Act. It has also come to the notice that these lands are being fragmented and sold.

Most of the land holders claim that they had got the LT Pattayam as per the Fixity of Tenure, highly placed sources said. However, they point that as per section 13 of the KLR Act, Fixity of Tenure is not given to more than 30 acres of Plantations and 15 acres of land in case of Individuals. The sources said that the land holders are just making false claims and some officials in the Revenue department were hand in glove with the major plantations, trusts and other institutions. The nexus between the officials and the land holders have led to the government losing a major chunk of public land, they said.

Source: The New Indian Express

http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/247105/The-New-Indian-Express-Thiruvananthapuram/24-03-2014#page/4/1