Kerala HC appoints advocate commission to survey land involved in Salim Raj case

KOCHI: The Kerala high court on Friday appointed an advocate commission to measure the land involved in the Kalamassery land grabbing case.
A division bench comprising justices PR Ramachandra Menon and K Harilal issued the directive to conduct the survey and appointed advocate KB Pradeep to oversee the survey proceedings.
In July, the high court had stayed mutation of the land, around 1.47 acres, at Pathadipalam near Kalamassery.The court considered a petition filed by AK Shareefa, who was the petitioner in the case in which the high court ordered a CBI probe into the alleged land grabbing by relatives of chief minister’s ex-gunman Salim Raj.
Shareefa and her sons have alleged that Salim Raj’s relative KH Abdul Majeed took illegal possession of 1.30 acres of government land and 17 cents of land belonging to them. The court appointed an advocate commission to oversee the survey after Shareefa’s counsel Dinesh R Shenoy submitted that a similar directive issued by the high court earlier was unfruitful as revenue officials are supporting Salim Raj’s relatives.
The high court had also directed in August that applications filed by Salim Raj’s relatives for obtaining building permits for construction in the disputed land should be considered along with the complaints against them.
In a petition to the high court, Shareefa’s son AK Nasser had alleged that multiple building permits were granted to Salim Raj’s relatives by Kalamassery municipality ignoring the fact that they only own 107 cents of the land, as against the claim of possessing over 3 acres as per the building permits. According to Nasser’s plea, the building permits were obtained on the basis of false records.
It was on March 28th last year that the high court ordered a CBI probe into the alleged land grabbing involving more than Rs 300 crore by Salim Raj and his relatives at Pathadipalam and Kadakampally in Thiruvananthapuram. In addition to the petition by Shareefa and her sons, the court considered a petition by Premchand Nair of Kadakampally.