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 cannot support, and forces any future acquisition through a legal route requiring fair market compensation rather than the token payments the administration had offered. But the reprieve is partial: a Union regulation notified this year gives the administration sweeping planning powers over island land, and islanders intend to challenge it. In a 1,338-page judgment earlier this month, justice TR Ravi made three findings that together dismantled the legal framework the administration had built for a fast-tracked takeover of islander-held land. First, the court ruled that cowledars in possession of pandaram lands when the Laccadive, Minicoy and Amindivi Islands Land Revenue and Tenancy Regulation took effect in 1965 are entitled to be treated as landowners under Section 2(n) of the regulation. Obtaining formal occupancy rights under Section 83 is not a precondition to that status, the court said. The papers only confirm what the statute already grants. Second, the court struck down as unconstitutional and unenforceable the 2023 Amendment Regulation, notified by the Union government on 25 October 2023. The amendment had deleted Section 15A - a provision introduced by a 2020 amendment that protected Scheduled Tribe islanders who acquired pandaram lands by sale or gift on or before 31 December 2019 as lawful occupants eligible for occupancy rights. Lakshadweep's population was declared Scheduled Tribe under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes list (modification orders), 1956, which is why the constitutional protections at issue apply. The deletion was arbitrary, the court said, and had been notified without the prior consultation with the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) required under Article 338A(9) of the Constitution for major policy matters affecting Scheduled Tribes - a requirement that survives Lakshadweep's ceasing to be a Scheduled Area on becoming a Union Territory. Third, the court ruled that the June 2024 takeover orders were without authority of law. Those orders proposed to take possession of pandaram lands from cowledars by paying only for the value of improvements such as coconut trees. Landowners cannot be dispossessed by a process designed for tenants or licensees, the court said. Any acquisition must go through the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, with fair market value paid for the land itself. The judgment set three separate deadlines. The administrator must confer occupancy rights on cowledars in possession at the 1965 commencement, and their legal heirs and assigns, within six months. Others in possession of pandaram lands on the same date, entitled under Section 83 and Rule 116 of the 1968 rules, must be granted rights within eight months, either on their pending applications or after a general notice under Rule 47(6). Pending review petitions and representations must be disposed of within four months. Pandaram lands account for 60% of Lakshadweep's 32 sq km land area, and the administration had planned to take over these holdings in phases as and when required....