New York, Aug. 24 -- The Kerala high court has ruled that cowledars in Lakshadweep are landowners under a 1965 tenancy regulation, struck down a 2023 Union government amendment to that regulation as unconstitutional, and set aside the Lakshadweep administration's June 2024 order to acquire pandaram lands for tourism infrastructure. The court directed that occupancy papers - pending in many cases for decades - be issued within six to eight months. The ruling is the most consequential judicial intervention on land rights in Lakshadweep in six decades. It restores statutory protections the Union government had sought to strip, halts a takeover proposed for tourism infrastructure that islanders and marine scientists say the fragile atolls canno...