NEW DELHI|THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Supreme Court has stayed the High Court's order that when agricultural land is converted for commercial purposes no fee should be charged for up to 25 cents of land and only the excess land should be charged a fee. With this, the state government's stance that people should pay 10 percent of the fair value of the total land as a fee if the land being converted exceeds 25 cents will come into effect again. This will increase the financial liability of the people in the land reclassification process. The government will get additional revenue through this. The Supreme Court will examine the government's position in detail later.

The government had filed a special permission petition in the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order. Senior lawyer PN Ravindran and government lawyer Nishe Rajan Shankar, who appeared for the government, said that if the order is implemented, the exchequer will suffer a huge financial loss.

Fee exemption for land classification up to 25 cents was done as a helping hand for those who want to build a house. This benefit is not transferable to others. The rules were misinterpreted by the High Court. The Supreme Court stayed the High Court's order after it was convinced that there was prima facie merit in the argument. A bench consisting of Justices CT Ravikumar and Sanjay Kumar also ordered to send a notice to the opposing party Thodupuzha native Moushmi Ann Jacob.

Backlash for thousands of applicants

The order issued by the state government on February 25, 2021 based on the paddy land and wetland rules is the one that reached the court. No fee to reclassify land up to 25 cents. A fee of 10 percent of the fair value has to be paid for changing the land type up to one acre. If it is more than one acre, 20 percent fee will be charged. This will make the situation difficult for thousands of people who are waiting to apply for property classification, including for building houses and starting small businesses.

2,48,336 online applications are pending as of November 29. More than 400 applications are received daily. A good portion of these are over 25 cents. Government received 1225 crores in fees for land reclassification from 2018-19 to September 2023. 1000 crore is expected by the revenue department when the pending online applications are cleared. Conversion of land upto 25 cents that happened before December 30, 2017, is free of cost.