Tata Group may lose control of 942-acre Karnataka tea estate

The Tata Group faces the prospect of losing control over a 942-acre tea estate in Karnataka’s Kodagu district, as the state government prepares to hand the lush-green plantation to the forest department in accordance with a local court judgement.

Tata Coffee’s petition to get the description of the land reversed to ‘redeemed sagu’ in revenue records from its 2008 entry as ‘forest’ was dismissed with cost earlier this month by senior civil judge Lokesha MG at Virajpet.

“The land is not under lease anymore. The RTC (records of rights, tenancy & crops) reflects the change, and we will formally hand over the land to the forest department on Monday,” Kodagu deputy commissioner BC Satheesha told ET.

In April 2008, the revenue authorities had changed the nature of the vast tea estate, under Tata Coffee’s lease, as “forest land” from the earlier “sagu” land (cultivable land).



Tata Coffee is a subsidiary of Tata Consumer Products and Asia’s second largest exporter of instant coffee, with revenue of about Rs 2,289 crore, last year. It has coffee and tea plantations in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The civil court in its December 3 order set aside the company’s legal challenge of the government’s action in changing the land description and reducing the lease period from 999 years to 99 years. The court told the petitioner that it could approach a revenue court to question the changes in revenue records.

LEGAL ACTION:
Tata Coffee, in an email response to ET, said it was “consulting with its legal advisors on further recommended course of actions and based on this, the company intends to take further actions to protect its interests”.

In response to a query as to why it did not approach a revenue court before, the company said the Karnataka High court had earlier given the liberty to it “to approach either the civil court or the appellate authority and based on legal advice, the company had approached the civil court”.

The tea estates are spread across West Nemmale, T Shettigeri, Poradu and Hysodluru villages in the lush green Western Ghat forests in South Kodagu (South Coorg). Tata Coffee (Tata Tea, back then) inherited the lease from Consolidated Coffee Ltd, which it acquired in 1990-91.

The original leases, however, dated back to 1914 and 1915, and they changed hands through assignment deeds.

Tata Coffee had petitioned the civil court seeking a declaration that the change in revenue records from ‘Redeemed Sagu’ to ‘Reserve Forest’ land was illegal and that the land had become redeemed land after the grant of lease, payment of timber value and cultivation with tea plants. It also challenged limiting the lease period to 99 years from the earlier granted 999 years.

The land, it said, was leased under the Coorg Land and Revenue regulations, 1899. The rules allowed leasing of paisari forest land for rubber, coffee and tea cultivation. In April 2008, revenue authorities changed the description of the leased land to ‘forest’ in the RTC, acting on a letter from the forest department. The petitioners said they noticed the change only in 2009.

The petition had argued that the estate was shown as “redeemed sagu” from 1914 to 2008, and hence the RTC changes made in April 2008 were invalid, improper and without a legal basis.

The revenue authorities maintained that the leased land had been part of the Pattighat, Kadamakal Ghat and Kerti reserve forest as per the Coorg district gazette dated June 1, 1904. According to the government order dated April 7, 2006, the leased lands were notified as reserve forest from 1904 itself. Most of the leased area was notified as reserve forest much before it was leased out.

Those days, forest lands were leased for specific purposes for rubber or tea cultivation. The lease itself does not change the nature or tenure of the land, the judgement said.

"I am of the opinion that the suit properties are paisary forest lands. Therefore, the defendant revenue officials have corrected the entries in revenue records and changed into a reserve forest from redeemed sagu,” the judgement said, and held the revenue entries as legal.

It was illegally changed as ‘redeemed sagu’ instead of ‘paisary forest’, the court said, and ordered action against officials involved in making the incorrect entry.

On the government limiting the period of a land lease to 99 years, as per the lease rules of 1940, the judge held that the government reserved the right to do so.

On the same day, the court also dismissed the petition of Glenloren Plantations, with costs, on the same grounds. The revenue authorities said they will hand over 1,349 acres of land to the forest department from the two cases.