Kerala High Court quashes RDO order on Lulu Group’s Thrissur land reclassification

Kochi: The Kerala High Court has cancelled the Revenue Divisional Officer’s (RDO) order that permitted reclassification of land owned by the Lulu Group in Thrissur.

The court directed that Lulu Group’s application for land conversion be reconsidered in line with legal procedures.

Justice Viju Abraham, who issued the order, instructed the RDO to re-examine the case within four months after considering the Agricultural Officer’s report and the findings of the State Remote Sensing & Environment Centre (KSRSEC). The earlier RDO decision has now been sent back for fresh scrutiny.

The court observed that the land was removed from the databank without following mandatory procedures. It pointed out that approval for conversion should only have been granted after the Agricultural Officer’s report was taken into account, which had not been done.

During the hearing, the bench examined satellite images, Google Earth data, and the Village Officer’s mahazar, which all indicated that the land remained under paddy cultivation until 2022.

Following this, the court also ordered that the land conversion fee already paid by Lulu Group be refunded temporarily.

Lulu Group had argued that its property in Ayyanthole, Thrissur, was wrongly included in the paddy land databank.

The company claimed that the land had lost its agricultural character long before the Kerala Paddy Land and Wetland Act came into force in 2008 and should therefore be treated as purayidam (residential land).

Countering this, T.N. Mukundan, a CPI worker and member of the Thrissur Paddy Land Protection Committee, intervened in the case, stating that the land remained a paddy field and its exclusion from the databank was illegal.

He alleged that the land had been filled with soil, altering its original nature.

The dispute gained wider attention after Lulu Group chairman M.A. Yusuffali alleged that a single political party was blocking the company’s Thrissur investment.

Mukundan later clarified that he had approached the court in his personal capacity. The CPI, while supporting his stance, reiterated that protection of paddy fields and wetlands is a core party policy.