THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The controversy over the extent of Cardamom Hill Reserves (CHR) in the State snowballed on Saturday with Land Revenue Commissioner K. J. Alphons shooting off a letter to Forest Secretary L. Radhakrishnan reasserting that the notification produced in a public interest litigation (PIL) before the Supreme Court was forged.

The Commissioner's action of faxing copies to newspaper offices before the original reached the Forest Secretary raised eyebrows. Forest Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan was also taken by surprise.

The Commissioner maintains that the area notified in 1897 as `reserve forest' came only to 15,720 acres. The CHR was not reserved forest. Nowhere in the original notification had it been mentioned that the reserved area was 334 square miles. Besides, 334 square miles did not work out to 2,15,720 acres as claimed by the petitioners. The CHR was not forest even in accordance with the dictionary meaning as land had lost the nature of true forests.

The Forest Department counters it by saying that at least on four occasions in the past, the Revenue Department had admitted that the CHR was reserved forest. It had filed affidavits before courts admitting so. The Department had also sought forest clearance for 20,000 hectares of CHR land to be assigned to settlers. In 1999, the then Revenue Minister K. E. Ismail had written to the Centre seeking general clearance from the Union Ministry of Forests for the renewal of cardamom leases. The Department had told the expert committee constituted by the Supreme Court that though there was no tree growth, the CHR land was `forest' as per Government records. Now the Department was taking an altogether different stand that the CHR land was not `forest' as per records.

At a Ministerial-level meeting convened earlier on Saturday to resolve the issue of status of CHR, the Forest Department asserted that it could not agree that it did not have any jurisdiction over the CHR. But it was not against issue of titles to true farmers who were in the possession of the land after fulfilling the conditions stipulated in the Forest (Conservation) Act.

The meeting was inconclusive. The Forest Minister said after the meeting that they had agreed to see whether a joint affidavit could be filed by the two Departments before the Supreme Court.

This means that the Commissioner and the Secretaries in charge of the two departments will have to sit together again to work it out. The petition was filed by a Thrissur based non-governmental organisation `One Earth One Life' against moves to assign CHR land to settlers and estate owners. It is to come up before the Court shortly for filing of affidavit by the Government.

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