Segur plateau elephant corridor: Private resort owners move Madras High Court challenging inquiry committee’s orders 

Private resort owners challenge Supreme Court orders on elephant corridor lands before Madras High Court.

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.

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.