Reclamation of paddy field for setting up a private school would fall within the meaning of “public purpose” as envisaged in the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008 : High Court of Kerala

The Kerala High Court has held in a recent judgment that reclamation of paddy field for setting up a private school would fall within the meaning of “public purpose” as envisaged in the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008, and that the Government was not right in declining permission for the said purpose. 

Under the provisions of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008, the government can grant exemption to convert or reclaim paddy land for public purpose on the basis of the State Level Monitoring Committee's recommendation as per section 10 of the Act. 

 

 Justice A Muhamed Mustaque hearing a writ petition filed by the manager of a CBSE school ordered the government to allow a CBSE school at Marampilly in Ernakulam to reclaim paddy land to build a road within two months.

Manager of Amal Public School, through advocate C A Navas, had filed the writ petition challenging a government order that denied exemption from the provisions of Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act for reclamation for the purposes of setting up a private school.

The Local Level Monitoring Committee comprising of the Village Panchayat president, agricultural officer and Village Vfficer had recommended reclamation of land to the state level committee as stipulated in Section 8 of the Act After scrutiny, the state level committee too endorsed the recommendation. 

The government had however rejected it on the ground that the school's need would not fall within the definition of public purpose. 

Justice Muhamed Mustaque held: "If education is identifiable as one which in normal course the state would have discharged or undertaken, necessarily this would fall within the meaning of public purpose. Since the petitioner is not engaged in commercial activities to sub-serve any private interest, I do not find any impediment in recognizing the activity discharged by the petitioner for the purpose of satisfying the meaning of public purpose as envisaged by the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008."