THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The hard-fought victory for the ownership of his five-cents of land did not end the woes of A Mohanan from Chackai. He has been moving from pillar to post to pay tax for his land at Ulloor under Cheruvaikkal Village, which is entangled in ownership issues. Back in 1994, his father P Arjunan bequeathed five cents from his 20 cents of land to Mohanan, owing to the ownership dispute between him and his close relatives.
“ The 20 cents which was given to my father and his brothers became a point of dispute regarding the share. Since the 1960’s, this case has been in court and it was only in 2013, I finally received a verdict in my favour. However, to my shock, when I approached the village office to pay tax for my land, I was not allowed to do so. I want to clear off all bottlenecks before handing over the land to my son,” said Mohanan.
In order to clear confusion regarding his five cents of wet land, Mohanan approached the Chief Minister’s ‘Sutharya Keralam’ programme in March 2015. From here, the case was referred to the Thiruvananthapuram Tahsildar’s office. The real issue surfaced as an aftermath of the re-survey. The village officer of the area presented a study report in June this year stating that 7.50 ares belonged to one Sadasivan as per the ‘thandapper’. The said five cents of land belonging to Mohanan was shown as only around 2.02 ares which is located within the area.
In the response by the Additional Tahsildar, Thiruvananthapuram, it said, “No transaction has happened in the said 2.02 ares of land or it came to the re-survey adalat. Hence the land needs to be measured again and a resurvey adalat has to be moved by Sadasivan. Then attributing a new ‘thandapper’ to the land is the way forward for Mohanan to pay tax.” The application is under the consideration of the LRM (land records maintenance) section.