On a cloudy evening early in the third week of May, a police officer from the Special Branch of the Ernakulam police reached out to some residents of Pariyathukavu, a Dalit settlement close to Malayidamthuruth, around 10 km from Perumbavoor.

He had an unpleasant message to deliver.

“We need to implement the court order without fail. The court has given us the ultimatum,” he stoically told the anxious residents.

He was referring to the execution of an eviction order which has been pending for a while.

The developments have cast uncertainty over the future of seven families, all relatives, who live in the Pariyathukavu settlement, along the Periyar Valley Canal. Moderate houses with plastered walls and concrete roofs situated on either side of a sloppy mud lane, bordered with thick green bushes sporting crimson hibiscus flowers, make up the Pariyathukavu settlement. Most of the residents say they have been living in the settlement for decades.

14 eviction attempts

Till now, the residents, backed by some political parties, had managed to avoid the execution of a court order to evict them from the holding—which had been entangled in a prolonged legal battle—on 14 occasions between September 2023 and May 15, 2026.

However, the latest attempt on May 20 to implement the court verdict took a different turn. Tension ran high in the area as a large posse of police personnel attempted to storm into the colony to assist the advocate commission to affix the eviction notices on the houses. The police action suddenly transformed the otherwise sleepy settlement into a conflict zone.

“We never expected the police to use force on us. They pushed us back and used a water cannon as we tried to put up resistance. Many of us were pushed down in the melee. My ailing husband had to be hospitalised after he got caught in the commotion,” recollects Thankamma Chandran, 60, belonging to one of the seven families that have been living under the constant threat of being thrown out of their homes.

The families, all descendants of the late Kalukurumban, a farm labourer, say they won’t leave the settlement.

“We have been living on this soil for over 100 years. We have built our homes and raised our children here. We don’t have anywhere to go to,” says Lakshmi Thevan, 69. Her walking stick slipped down as she folded her hands to pray at the nearby sacred grove, which the families have been maintaining in the settlement.

“The police action has left us worried and scared. The scary thought of someone pulling down my house keeps rushing to my mind and gives me sleepless nights,” the elderly woman says as her eyes well up.

The police retreated after the intervention of political leaders. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who sensed trouble in the police action on his third day in office as part of the Congress-led government in the State, intervened.

The legal battle

The tense scenes that unfolded at the settlement are the latest episode of a decades-long legal battle over the ownership of 2.69 acres of land at Malayidamthuruth. The civil dispute over the ownership of a parcel of land has attained socio-political, legal and humanitarian undertones.

On one side of the litigation, which dates back to the 1970s, is the heirs of Kannothu Sankaran Nair, a landlord of Malayidamthuruth, and on the other side are the descendants of Kalukurumban.

Sankaran Nair's family claims that the 2.69-acre holding is their ancestral property and accuses Kalukurumban and his kin of encroaching on it. The settlers, on the other hand, argue that the land where they have built their lives, brick by brick, is revenue land and not private property.

It all reportedly started with Kalukurumban and his son Kumaran being assigned 15 cents and 8 cents of land respectively by the Land Tribunal, Vazhakulam, on their applications in 1971. Kalukurumban’s reported attempt to obtain a title deed for the 2.69 acres around the assigned property triggered the legal battle with Sankaran Nair, who challenged the claim alleging encroachment on his holding. The litigation ran through decades without a settlement in sight.

Though in 1984, Sankaran Nair approached the Munsiff Court, Perumbavoor, alleging encroachment by Kalukurumban, the court dismissed the petition in 1987 citing that the property in dispute was not properly marked. Sankaran Nair challenged the order in the Paravur Subcourt and secured an eviction order in 1993. Though Kalukurumban’s side moved the Kerala High Court against the order, the High Court also ruled in favour of Sankaran Nair in 1997 and sent the case to the Munsiff Court to measure the land and order necessary action. The land was surveyed again and it was found that only 1.92 acres remained in the settlement as the rest had been used for the construction of the canal and roads. The court confirmed the ownership rights of Sankaran Nair and ordered the demolition of the structures and the eviction of the residents. Subsequent attempts by the residents to challenge the order failed in the High Court and the Supreme Court.

Kalukurumban’s descendants blame their ignorance and lack of resources for the legal setback they suffered. “We realised we lost the case only when the advocate commission turned up to initiate the eviction procedures in September 2023. Soon, we consulted all political parties and sought their support to save our homes and land,” says Saji Thevan, 53, a private employee.

Attain political dimensions

What until then remained a land dispute found political dimensions with the formation of an action council on September 10, 2023 following the first eviction attempt.

Though the then ward member, Nusrat Haris of the Congress, was made the chairperson of the council, she quit the next day citing her difficulties in opposing a court order, being an elected representative. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], which was in power in the State then and had its representative elected from the Kunnathunad constituency where the disputed holding is located, eventually took a leadership role in the action council.

P.V. Sreenijin, the former legislator from Kunnathunad, says he came across the dispute after the residents approached him in 2023 seeking his intervention to save their houses. Sreenijan says that his approach was to buy more time from the court and prevent their eviction. “The disputed holding was listed as revenue land in the Settlement Register before 1983. The residents lost the case initially as they could not produce the required documents. The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government had taken the initiative to reclaim all the encroached land in the area, including those belonging to the claimants who had secured favourable court orders,” he says.

As the situation at Malayidamthuruth turned volatile following the police action, the CPI(M) switched to protest mode. Senior party leaders, including State secretary M.V. Govindan, visited Pariyathukavu in the wake of the alleged police excesses. The party alleges that the United Democratic Front (UDF) regime’s policy is to throw the residents out of their homes.

However, Congress leader and Kunnathunad MLA V.P. Sajeendran refutes the CPI(M) charge. “The police had resorted to using force even during the LDF rule. The UDF government’s priority is to ensure legal protection for the affected families. The government moved the High Court on behalf of the residents to protect them,” Sajeendran says.

The legal intervention helped in obtaining a breather for both the government and the residents as the court allowed the government two weeks’ time to carry out the eviction. The government has deputed Higher Education Minister Roji M. John to handle the situation.

“We are holding discussions with both sides and trying to sort it out in an amicable manner. The court order is binding on all of us and we are aware of the legal consequences. The government is committed to rehabilitating the families,” John says.

Thevan, meanwhile, exudes hope that the government’s intervention would put an end to the misery of the families. “We are reposing hope on the government. We don’t have any other options,” he says.

'Court our last resort'

On the other side, Sumesh Babu, the 40-year-old grandson of Sankaran Nair, rues that his family is being painted as ruthless landlords. “The court of law remains our last resort and we believe in the court’s decisions. We don’t know how long it will take to execute the court order, but we will wait for it. If we back off now, it will send out a wrong message about the whole judicial system,” says Babu.

The residents, who dread the thought of being evicted from their holdings, and the claimants of the holding, who hope to win back their ancestral land, are anxiously waiting for the finality of the protracted legal battle.