The petitioner in Writ Petition (Civil) No.21752 of 2018 is the appellant before us. For the sake of convenience the reference to parties is as they appear in the writ petition. The petitioner had approached this Court aggrieved by the seizure of a JCB excavator bearing No.KL-13Q-3609 that was owned by him. It would appear that the second respondent Tahsildar seized the said vehicle alleging that the vehicle was used for reclaiming paddy land falling in Survey No.54/2 of Pallipuram Village of Cherthala Taluk in Alappuzha District. The case of the petitioner in the writ petition was essentially that, the property where the JCB was used for the purposes of spreading gravel, belonged to one Shaji and the said property was not included in the land data bank prepared for the region in terms of Section 5 of the Kerala Conservation of Paddy land and Wet land Act, 2008. It was therefore pointed out that, the seizure of the JCB was without jurisdiction in as much as the provisions of the said Act could not be invoked in respect of any activity that was carried on in land that did not come within the definition of 'Paddy land' for the purposes of the Act. The learned single Judge, in the judgment impugned in this appeal, found that, although various contentions were raised with regard to the legality of Ext.P4 Mahazar, Ext.P5 Report of the District Collector and Ext.P8 Stop Memo, an application could be submitted by the petitioner before the District Collector so that an adjudication in terms of Section 20 could follow.
