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Representational image. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
A group of private resort owners has approached the Madras High Court challenging the orders passed against them by the Supreme Court constituted Segur Plateau Elephant Corridor Inquiry Committee (SPECIC), headed by retired High Court judge K. Venkataraman, on August 21, 2023.
Their batch of seven writ petitions have been listed for hearing before Acting Chief Justice D. Krishnakumar and Justice P.B. Balaji on Tuesday. The SPECIC had held the very purchase of the lands, by the resort owners after the declaraion of the lands as private forests in 1991, as null and void.
The writ petitioners before the High Court, in the present second round of litigation related to the resorts located on the elephant corridor, included Jungle Retreat, Forest Hills Farms and Guest House, Gordon Jungle Properties, Jungle Hut, De Rock Jungle Living and Rolling Stones Resort.
In an affidavit filed on behalf of Jungle Retreat, its proprietor Rohan Mathias said that he had purchased free hold patta lands at Bokkapuram area of Masinagudi in the Nilgiris district in 1996 and started the homestay/resort after obtaining all necessary permissions from statutory authorities.
In the meantime, the Nilgiris Collector had on November 1, 1991 notified a huge tract of 1.92 lakh acres of lands in Udhagamandalam, Sholur and Gudalur Taluks as private forests thereby requiring the prior permission of a district level committee for sale or development of those lands.
Watch | Why is this elephant habitat in Nilgiris under threat?
| Video Credit:
M. Sathyamoorthy
However, due to large scale opposition from the local residents to such a notification, the State government had issued a press note on November 22, 1991 clarifying that the purchase and sale of those lands would not be subjected to any kind of restriction, the deponent claimed.
He said that even as recently as in 2023, the district level committee constituted under the Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forests Act (TNPPFA) of 1949 had conceded that the law was not implemented effectively till 2009 leading to sale of large tracts of lands since 1991.
Further, in 2016, the Hospitality Association of Mudumalai (HAM), of which the deponent was a founding member, challenged the validity of the 1991 notification before the High Court and obtained an interim order of status quo on April 25, 2018 subject to any orders to the contrary by the Supreme Court.
Apart from these proceedings, HAM had independently filed an appeal before the Supreme Court in 2011 challenging a High Court order, in a 2008 writ petition, which had led to the issuance of a Government Order on August 31, 2010 declaring the Segur Plateau elephant corridor.
After nine long years, the Supreme Court disposed of the appeal on October 14, 2020 upholding the power of the State government to issue the 2010 G.O. It, however, constituted the SPECIC, led by Mr. Venkataraman, to consider the grievances of those whose immovable properties would be affected.
The SPECIC had a very limited scope of deciding only the alleged arbitrary variance in the acreage of the elephant corridor under the 2010 GO but it had gone about deciding the title of the resort owners over their properties located on the notified corridor, the petitioners complained.
Though it was brought to the notice of SPECIC that HAM’s 2016 writ petition challenging the 1991 notification was still pending in the High Court, the committee concluded that the 2018 interim order of status quo by the High Court had got merged with the Supreme Court’s 2020 order, they said.
Contending that SPECIC had erred in coming to such a conclusion, the petitioners claimed that it had no authority to rule that the very purchase of the lands, without the approval of the TNPPFA district level committee after 1991, should be considered as null and void.
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